Some 64,000 Wyomingites provide 56 million hours of family caregiving annually, to the tune of $1 million worth of labor. That’s according to the “Valuing the Invaluable 2026” report published by the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) in March.
The dollar tally was calculated based on a value of $18.97 per hour.
According to their findings, thousands of Wyomingites are currently caregivers for older family members, spouses or other loved ones. The report defines a caregiver as “handling daily tasks of living.”
Tom Lacock with AARP Wyoming said this is the first time the annual report has included statewide numbers, which allows his team to dig deeper into this issue.
“A number of caregivers are actually performing high-intensity caregiving,” said Lacock. “What we’re finding is that people are performing quite a bit in the way of medical and nursing tasks that had previously been healthcare professionals.”
These are tasks like medical care management, bathing, and helping a loved one get to the bathroom or in and out of bed. Lacock said this could be driven by an inability to pay for medical care or a caregiver having familiarity with the tasks. He pointed to large distances between resources being a challenge for Wyoming caregivers.
“Our vast open spaces, which is a beautiful thing, although it becomes a little more difficult when you’re trying to take care of somebody in an area that may not have a lot of services available,” said Lacock. “If you’re in a place where there simply aren’t a lot of professional care workers, that becomes something that then falls to the family caregiver as well.”
Lacock said a lack of transportation is one of the biggest reasons people in Wyoming go into nursing homes.
“I can’t get to the grocery store anymore, I can’t get to healthcare appointments, I can’t get to the pharmacy and I can’t see my friends. And so that becomes the next option,” said Lacock.
Stella Montano is an experienced caregiver and state president for AARP Wyoming, based in Sheridan. She said caregivers in Sheridan often drive to Casper or Billings for more complex care. Montano also emphasized the challenge of finding time for caregiver respite.
“A caregiver is 24/7 sometimes,” said Montano. “You have that person for their life, for the rest of your life.”
Montano helped to found Care for Caregivers, a multiweek program that provides dinner, respite and covers important topics like brain health, stress and Medicaid. The program has now expanded to other places in Wyoming, like Newcastle and Cheyenne.
Lacock said the report provides important data and context around the work of caregivers, which can often go unseen.
“When we’re able to offer just an overall impact in the numbers in terms of who is doing family caregiving, what their needs are and how much they’re contributing to our state by keeping people out of nursing homes, it becomes a big deal,” he said. “It reminds us that we have an obligation as a state to really work to support these folks and support our older adults.”
Lacock pointed to $12 million in Wyoming’s state budget and potential funds from the Rural Health Transformation Fund as ways to embark on new projects to support caregivers – especially around transportation.
