State of Caring on finances support

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Dear all

Thanks to everyone who completed Carers UK’s 2024 State of Caring survey - we really appreciate the time that many of you took to do this.

Having analysed the data, today we released our State of Caring on finances report, which finds that unpaid carers for older, ill and disabled relatives are finding it increasingly difficult to afford day-to-day living costs, with the worry and anxiety of this affecting their mental health and wellbeing.

This is the first in our series of reports from the State of Caring Survey which received 12,500 responses this year. This report is funded by abrdn Financial Fairness Trust.

This year’s State of Caring 2024 survey found that:

  • 61% of unpaid carers are worried about living costs and managing in the future, and over a third (35%) don’t feel confident they will be able to manage financially over the next 12 months
  • A quarter of carers (27%) are struggling to make ends meet and 28% of carers are cutting back on essentials like food and heating
  • 28% of carers said they have had to use credit cards, 22% have used their overdraft and 14% of carers are in debt because of caring.
  • 68% of carers have cut back on hobbies and leisure activities and 60% have reduced time spent seeing family and friends
  • Over half of carers (51%) said that their financial situation is having a negative impact on their mental health, and 61% feel stressed or anxious when they think about their financial situation.
  • 42% of carers on Carer’s Allowance are struggling to make ends meet, compared to 27% of all carers, and 19% of carers in receipt of Universal Credit use food banks compared to 7% of all carers.

Carer poverty roundtable

Yesterday, we held a carer poverty roundtable to discuss the findings in our recently published research, commissioned by Carers UK and conducted by the WPI Economics, which found that 1.2 million unpaid carers are living in poverty. We were pleased that two Government Ministers attended this: Sir Stephen Timms, the Minister for Social Security and disability and Stephen Kinnock, Minister of State for Care, who has overall policy responsibility for unpaid carers. A number of key parliamentarians also attended the discussion.