enworth Long Term Care Calculator
Long term care is the expense almost nobody budgets for and almost everybody eventually faces. This calculator projects what care will cost when you actually need it, using care specific inflation, and lays out the year by year bill. Two facts frame the whole exercise: about 70% of people turning 65 will need some long term care, according to the Administration for Community Living, and Medicare does not pay for custodial long term care. A note on names first, because this page needs it: “Enworth” is the title this page inherited from the original article, and this tool is an independent estimator with no affiliation to any company of that name, and no affiliation to Genworth. The cost anchors below are the published CareScout Cost of Care Survey 2025 medians, plus one separately sourced memory care figure, and the attribution section below says exactly which figure comes from where. If you are mapping the broader retirement picture first, the retirement nest egg calculator sizes the pot this bill has to come from.
Planning estimate only, not financial advice. Actual costs vary widely by state, provider and care needs. Consult a financial planner for personal decisions.
Quick Answer
A 55 year old planning for assisted living at 80, with today’s $6,200 monthly median inflating at 3.5% a year, faces a projected $14,652 a month when care begins and a $546,153 lifetime bill over 3 years of care, with inflation still running during the care years. That is why the tool compounds care specific inflation over the full 25 year gap instead of pricing care at today’s rates. Adjust the care type and inflation above for your own plan.
Key takeaways
- Care inflation compounds twice: before care starts and during the care years.
- Assisted living at the 2025 median projects to about $14,652 a month in 25 years at 3.5% inflation, for a 3 year total of about $546,153.
- Medicare does not cover custodial long term care; that gap is what you are planning for.
- National medians hide wide state variation, so treat the result as a planning figure and replace it with local quotes when you have them.
- Quick Answer
- How the projection actually works
- Worked example: 55 to 80, assisted living
- What long term care costs: the verified 2025 medians
- Picking the inflation rate honestly
- How people actually pay for it
- What competing calculators miss
- Frequently asked questions
- Add This Calculator to Your Website
- References
How the projection actually works
Two multiplications do all the work. Future monthly cost = today’s monthly cost × (1 + inflation) raised to the years until care begins. Then the lifetime total adds each care year, with inflation still running during the care itself, so year 2 costs more than year 1 and year 3 more again. A 3.5% rate over 25 years multiplies today’s price by 2.363, which is why a $6,200 monthly median becomes $14,652, and why pricing care at today’s rates understates the real bill by more than half. The tool also handles a fractional final year pro rata: 2.5 years of care bills two full years plus half of a third year at that year’s inflated monthly rate.
Worked example: 55 to 80, assisted living
Current age 55, care begins at 80, assisted living at today’s $6,200 monthly median, 3.5% annual inflation, 3 years of care. The 25 year compounding factor is 1.035 to the power of 25, which is 2.363, so the projected monthly cost at 80 is $14,652. Year by year, with inflation continuing during care, the schedule the tool prints is:
| Care year | Monthly cost | Annual cost |
|---|---|---|
| Year 1 | $14,652 | $175,825 |
| Year 2 | $15,165 | $181,979 |
| Year 3 | $15,696 | $188,349 |
| Total | $546,153 |
These are the pre-filled defaults, so pressing Calculate shows the same three rows. The calculator flags this as a major funding need, because the total passes its $500,000 threshold. That badge is a planning prompt, not a verdict on your finances: a household with a large dedicated pot and a short expected need reads the same total very differently from a household starting from zero.
What long term care costs: the verified 2025 medians
The table below is the anchor set this calculator uses. Every figure except memory care is a national median from the CareScout Cost of Care Survey 2025, fieldwork July to November 2025, released in March 2026. CareScout is the Genworth company that now publishes the long running survey. Memory care is not a CareScout category, so its figure comes from a different source and the table says so.
| Care type | Monthly median | Annual median | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nursing home, semi-private room | $9,581 | $114,975 | CareScout 2025 |
| Nursing home, private room | $10,798 | $129,575 | CareScout 2025 |
| Assisted living | $6,200 | $74,400 | CareScout 2025 |
| Memory care | $6,690 | $80,280 | A Place for Mom 2026 report (2025 move-ins) |
| Home care, 44 hrs/week | $6,673 | $80,080 | CareScout 2025 ($35/hr) |
| Adult day health care | $2,058 | $24,700 | CareScout 2025 ($95/day) |
They are national medians: half of providers charge more and half charge less. Alaska, Hawaii, the Northeast and Washington DC run far higher, while parts of the South and Midwest run lower, and assisted living medians are base rates before care level charges are added. That is why the tool treats the median as a starting input, not a quote.
Attribution correction: Enworth, Genworth and the old figures
The previous version of this page labelled its presets as “2026 Genworth Cost of Care Survey” medians. That attribution could not be verified against the published survey, and its figures do not match it: the previous assisted living preset was $5,900, which is the 2024 survey median, while its nursing home presets matched neither the 2024 nor the 2025 survey. Those figures have therefore been replaced, not carried forward. The current presets are the published 2025 medians listed above. Separately, “Enworth” appears to be a misspelling of Genworth in the original page title. The slug and title wording are retained so existing links keep working, but this page is not affiliated with, endorsed by or acting for Genworth, CareScout or any company named Enworth.
Picking the inflation rate honestly
General inflation and care inflation are different numbers. Care costs are driven by wages for aides and nurses, not by the consumer price basket, and the planning range most advisers use is 3 to 5 percent a year. Using 2% because it feels safe cuts a 25 year projection nearly in half and produces a plan that fails on contact with reality. The table below runs the same assisted living case at both ends of the range, so the cost of being wrong is visible before you choose:
| Inflation | Monthly cost at 80 | 3 year total |
|---|---|---|
| 3.5% (default) | $14,652 | $546,153 |
| 5% | $20,995 | $794,256 |
If anything, run the tool twice, once at 3.5% and once at 5%, and plan for the worse one. The compound interest factor calculator shows the same compounding arithmetic in isolation, which is useful if you want to check the 2.363 factor by hand before trusting a care projection built on it.
How people actually pay for it
There are four funding sources, and most families end up using more than one. Self funding from savings and home equity is the most common and the most exposed to the compounding above. Long term care insurance bought in your 50s costs far less than the same policy at 65, and hybrid life plus long term care policies return something even if care is never needed. Medicaid covers nursing home care after assets are spent down, with strict state rules and a five year look back on asset transfers, so it is a last resort to plan around, not a first resort to assume. Family caregiving is unpaid in dollars and expensive in everything else. The calculator’s lifetime total is the number each of these options has to cover, and the withdrawal retirement calculator tests whether a pot can actually sustain withdrawals of that size, while the Social Security retirement age calculator pins down when the other retirement income starts.
Self funding works when
You have a large dedicated pot, you want maximum flexibility on care type, and no underwriting or premiums are involved.
Insurance wins when
Assets sit in the middle range, you buy before 60 while healthy, and protecting a spouse’s finances matters more than keeping every dollar liquid.
What competing calculators miss
Premium estimators show a coverage pool and a monthly premium but never the year by year bill you are actually insuring against. State by state tools give today’s prices with no inflation math, which understates a 25 year plan by more than half. Thin single input tools skip the schedule entirely and price care at today’s rates. This page combines the three missing pieces: published 2025 medians by care type with the source of each figure stated, full compounding over the gap years and during the care years, and a year by year schedule showing exactly when each dollar is spent. It also keeps the attribution honest where the previous version was not: a figure that cannot be traced to a published survey does not stay on the page under a survey’s name.
Frequently asked questions
Help with the basic activities of daily life: bathing, dressing, eating, moving around, toileting and continence, plus supervision for cognitive impairment. It includes nursing homes, assisted living, memory care and paid help at home, and it is different from medical care, which is what health insurance and Medicare cover.
It takes today’s monthly median for your chosen care type and compounds it at your inflation rate for every year until care begins, then totals each care year with inflation still running. The schedule in the results shows the annual breakdown.
Three to five percent a year is the standard planning range; care costs have historically outpaced general inflation. Run the calculator at both 3.5% and 5% and plan around the higher number if you want a margin of safety.
The average need runs about two to three years, but averages hide a wide spread: many people need less than a year while roughly one in five needs five years or more. The calculator defaults to 3 years; raise it if longevity runs in your family.
No. Medicare covers short skilled nursing stays after a hospital admission, home health in limited situations and hospice. It does not pay for custodial long term care, which is the ongoing help with daily life that this calculator prices.
No. The page keeps the Enworth title wording from the original article, but this is an independent planning estimator. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by or acting for any company named Enworth, or for Genworth or CareScout, whose published survey supplies the cost medians.
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References
- Genworth / CareScout. CareScout Releases 2025 Cost of Care Survey Results (assisted living $6,200/month; nursing home semi-private $114,975/year; private $129,575/year; adult day health care $24,700/year; non-medical home care $35/hour, $80,080/year at 44 hours/week; fieldwork July to November 2025). Accessed October 24, 2026.
- Administration for Community Living. Medicare (Medicare does not pay for most long term care services or personal care such as help with bathing or supervision, often referred to as custodial care, except in specific circumstances). Accessed October 24, 2026.
- U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation. What Is the Lifetime Risk of Needing and Receiving Long-Term Services and Supports? (April 2019) (70% of adults who survive to age 65 develop severe long term services and supports needs; cited via the Administration for Community Living planning guidance). Accessed October 24, 2026.
- A Place for Mom. Costs of Long-Term Care and Senior Living Report 2026 (memory care national median $6,690/month for residents who moved in during 2025; no verified publisher URL available at drafting time, so no link is given rather than a guessed one). Accessed October 24, 2026.