Senator Collins Questions Retirement Policy Experts on Family Caregiving

At a HELP Committee hearing, Senator Collins highlighted bipartisan legislation to help uncompensated family caregivers build retirement savings.

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Click HERE to watch and HERE to download video of Senator Collins' questioning.

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Today, at a Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee Hearing, U.S. Senator Susan Collins questioned retirement policy and financial planning experts on the challenges facing family caregivers and highlighted two bipartisan bills she plans to reintroduce to strengthen caregivers' retirement security. Senator Collins emphasized that millions of caregivers provide essential, uncompensated care to parents, spouses, and children, often at a significant personal financial sacrifice. When caregivers leave their jobs, they lose not only wages, but also time contributing to Social Security and retirement savings, which can have long-term consequences on their ability to comfortably retire.

Senator Collins highlighted the Improving Retirement Security for Family Caregivers Act and the Catching Up Family Caregivers Act, two bills she introduced with Senator Mark Warner (D-VA) last Congress that are designed to help individuals who leave the workforce to care for a loved one better prepare for retirement. The former would allow caregivers to contribute to a Roth IRA even if they have no earned income, while the latter would permit additional catch-up retirement contributions to make up for years spent out of the workforce.

Last month, Senator Collins was awarded the Care In Action Congressional Award from the National Alliance for Caregiving at the organization's Caregiver Nation Summit in Washington. Senator Collins received the award in recognition of her work on the Lifespan Respite Act and her longstanding support for our nation's caregivers.

A transcript of Senator Collins' questioning is as follows:

Senator Collins: Mr. Williams, you mentioned in your testimony legislation that I've introduced in the last Congress and hope to be reintroducing soon with Senator Warner, called the Improving Retirement Security for Family Caregivers Act and the Catching Up Family Caregivers Act. The first of the two bills would allow caregivers to save for retirement in a Roth IRA, even if they are not working for pay, since most caregivers are uncompensated. The second would allow caregivers to make additional retirement catch-up contributions to compensate for those years that they couldn't contribute due to leaving their jobs to take care of a loved one.

Family caregivers play such an essential role, as you know, and when a loved one is no longer to care for him or herself, it often falls on an adult child to step in and take care of a parent or a disabled spouse or sometimes a child. Oftentimes, they do so because they simply can't find professional help to come into the home, or it's too expensive, or they aren't comfortable with an outsider taking care of their loved one, or the loved one may resist that, and they really don't want to place a beloved parent or spouse in a long-term care facility, which also is extremely expensive, unless it is covered under Medicaid.

So, not only do many of these uncompensated caregivers have to leave the workforce, but they also are foregoing their contributions to Social Security, to their IRA, to their retirement plans, so they suffer economically when the time comes to retire. Could you comment further on this issue based on your own experience with serving your clients? And what do you think of the bills that we've introduced?

Chad Williams, CFP - Financial Advisor, Edward Jones: Senator Collins, I see this everywhere I go-my clients, my family, friends, neighbors. It is a critical issue, and one that I personally am incredibly passionate about. In my practice, there is not a single financial plan that we draft that doesn't have some sort of caregiving component or long-term care to it. And caregiving is a profound act of love, but it often comes at a high personal cost. It is the intersection between financial security and health security. And at our firm, we partnered with Age Wave in 2025 and found that 92% of caregivers expressed concerns about their own retirement-it is a prevailing issue. Your bills would provide much-needed security, retirement security tools, for caregivers to make up not being in the workforce, so that they can contribute more when they're able to. As a financial planning practitioner, I want tools, like what your bills have, to be able to offer to support clients of this deserving community. And for caregivers in my practice that have little to no earned income, it would allow them to be able to defer in tax-advantaged accounts, and they wouldn't have otherwise been able to. So, we welcome bipartisan efforts and discussions to advance legislation that provides tools for this important community.

Senator Collins: Thank you so much. I think that's a really overlooked but growing segment of the population. And here, they're doing the right thing. They're taking care of a beloved parent or spouse who is definitely housebound, and at times they simply cannot get the care other than from a relative. And yet, the relative who leaves the workforce to care for that beloved relative is penalized later in life because they've lost out on a year, or two, or maybe three, or more, when they would have been in the workforce. It's not that they don't want to be in the workforce. And believe me, I've seen it firsthand, caregiving is a 24-hour-a-day job. And yet, this is totally uncompensated. I only have 10 seconds left. Mr. Copland, I saw you nodding. If you could very quickly make whatever point you would like to make.

James Copland - Senior Fellow, Manhattan Institute: Certainly. I also think your bills are good ideas. And I'm caring for an 85-year-old father. You know, we've had to do it both ways. He's in long term care now, but he wasn't until less than a year ago, and it's difficult. So, I applaud you for this effort.

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