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The latest on the Key Bridge collapse, New York puts forth legislation to get clean energy projects on the grid and Wisconsin and other states join a federal summer food program to help feed kids across the country.

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Republicans float conspiracy theories on the collapse of Baltimore's Key Bridge, South Carolina's congressional elections will use a map ruled unconstitutional, and the Senate schedules an impeachment trial for Homeland Secretary Mayorkas.

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Historic wildfires could create housing and health issues for rural Texans, a Kentucky program helps prison parolees start a new life, and descendants of Nicodemus, Kansas celebrate the Black settlers who journeyed across the 1870s plains seeking self-governance.

Number of Adults Playing Care Giver on the Rise Across The U.S.

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Monday, December 21, 2009   

LANSING, Mich. - As many as two million adults in Michigan are helping care for a loved one while working full-time, according to a new report commissioned by Metlife, AARP, and other organizations. Nationally, it says nearly 30 percent of the U.S. adult population are caregivers. Most are relatives of those being cared for, and 70 percent look after someone over the age of 50.

AARP-Michigan spokesman Andy Farmer says most of them spend about 20 hours a week caring for a relative. He says the economic value of their work is estimated to be about 375 billion dollars.

"Caregivers are by far the largest payers of health and long-term care supports and services in the country. It's not hospitals, it's not nursing homes, it's not assisted living or Medicaid funding or community-based services either, but families themselves."

Farmer says state and federal lawmakers should be providing funding for resources and information that can help families provide care.

The study found that the majority of care givers also hold full-time jobs, and over 40 percent make less than $50,000 dollars per year. Farmer says taking care of a relative can be a financial burden and physically draining.

"You hear the rhetoric politically about how 'Well, people should be taking care of their own and not be quote, turning to the government end quote.' These studies show, and nail down emphatically and resoundingly, that families are already doing that in overwhelming and decisive numbers. We should be helping them."

According to the report, nearly seven out of ten caregivers are women, with an average age of 48.


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