Managing the Job Market and Your Parents’ Finances: Tips for the Sandwich Generation

Elizabeth, do you enjoy sandwiches?

I do enjoy sandwiches, Sean.

And actually, I had a fire chicken sandwich two days ago,

and I had an egg sandwich yesterday.

And of course, no cheese,

because we are lactose intolerant over here.

Mm, you know, for me, I'm all about a classic PB&J,

preferably with chunky peanut butter.

But today, we're gonna talk about

a different kind of sandwich,

the financial one that you can find yourself in when you are of a certain age.

Welcome to NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast, where you send us your money questions and

we answer them with the help of our genius nerds. I'm Sean Piles.

And I'm Elizabeth Ayola.

This episode, we're looking at how to help manage the finances of aging parents while also caring for children. Mmm, the sandwich generation.
I am inching my way closer to that cohort. Exactly.
But first, our weekly Money News Roundup, where we break down the latest in the world of finance to help you be smarter with your money. Today, we're talking about the labor market and how we, the public, are feeling about the economy.
NerdWallet actually has a new report looking at our perception of how things are relative to what they really are. Our news colleague, Anna Helhoske, is here with more.
Hey, Anna. Hey, Elizabeth.
Anna, this was a big topic of conversation last fall, right? During election season in particular, economists were saying, hey, the U.S. economy is doing pretty darn well, while voters were saying, no, no, it's not, at least not where we live.
Yeah, that's right. And the disconnect continues.
So I'm joined by NerdWallet economist Elizabeth Renter. Welcome back, Elizabeth.
Hey, Anna, thanks for having me. It's always a great discussion.
So something we've talked about frequently is the disconnect between how people feel and what data says, especially when it comes to the economy. Can you give us an overview about how personal experience tends to shape perception about the economy and, in this case, our relationship with work? Well, we know that people base much of what they think about the economy at large on their own personal experiences, and the labor market is a massive part of the overall economy.
You know, when you think about our personal experiences within the labor market, you might think about how long we've been at our job or how we feel about our pay and benefits and how these things change with time or our experiences when we're searching for a new job. And interestingly, all of these things are also important on a macro level when interpreting the health of the labor market.
But our personal experiences go beyond the data. We might gauge satisfaction with our pay increases on whether it feels like we're able to increasingly buy more stuff or better afford the stuff we have.
But it can also be influenced by what we hear and see on social media or in our social circles. Now, specifically about data, can you give an overview of how the labor market has behaved over the last few years in terms of the data that we've seen? Yeah.
So we've come through a really interesting transition over the last, say, four years, which makes this a great time to talk about the labor market. Towards the end of the initial months of the pandemic, workers had the upper hand and could find a new, perhaps better paying job relatively easily.
That's because the demand for labor or workers outweighed the supply or the number of workers. So companies had to compete for them.
This showed up in the data as high quits rates and high hiring rates as people turned over in jobs. Now, however, things have shifted in part because of the Federal Reserve's campaign to slow inflation, the labor market has cooled, and labor supply and labor demand are in better balance.
So in the data, that appears as lower hiring rates, lower quits rates, and also fewer job openings. Now let's talk about labor sentiment.
How optimistic are people about the labor market? That's a great follow-up question to what I was just talking about, because that cooler labor market means people are feeling kind of stuck. It feels worse now than it did then.
It's more difficult to find work now than it was just a few years ago, so more workers are pessimistic, which is showing up in popular measures of consumer sentiment, like the survey from the conference board, for example. People believe it's less likely they'll be able to find a replacement job if they lose theirs, and they're putting a greater likelihood on the chance of losing their jobs.
Both insights from the New York Fed. Got it.
So here's a hypothetical scenario. Say a worker loses their job and they haven't been able to come back from that easily, maybe in terms of part-time versus full-time work or their income.
It's safe to say that their perception is probably the labor market is bad. So if they hear that unemployment has been stable, that doesn't really mesh with their personal experience.
Is that right? Yeah, that's absolutely right. And one stat that I always go back to is a 4% unemployment rate is about 7 million workers that are out of work.
So even though 4% is quote unquote, relatively low, try to telling that to the 7 million people looking for jobs. And I think making that connection is human nature.
You know, we fielded a survey last summer that found people consider their personal experiences and that of the people around them when they're judging the health of the economy. And that likely extends to their perceptions of the health of the labor market.
So even if I'm personally happy in my job, I might have people in my friend circle or my LinkedIn network that are experiencing the labor market firsthand and having a hard time. So even their perceptions are going to shape my opinion.
All right, here's another one. Of these three factors, data, vibes, or personal experiences, what tends to weigh more heavily when it comes to sentiment? That's a tough one.
When it comes to individual perception or sentiment, I'm not sure we can ever truly know this. I think it's a highly individualized set of circumstances, and I think it likely varies from person to person.
Fair enough. Let's get to the latest NerdWallet survey conducted by Harris Poll.
Now, just to note, it was conducted January 2nd through January 6th. Elizabeth, what did the results say about pay satisfaction? So I found this part really interesting.
About half of employed Americans said their pay increases have kept up with inflation over the past five years. I assumed it would be less, despite knowing that pay on average has kept pace with inflation by many measures.
And younger people were surprisingly more likely to say their pay has kept up. One possible explanation for this is that younger workers are earlier in their careers and therefore more likely to experience faster wage growth.
Also, they're more likely to be employed in industries that saw particularly high wage growth over the past five years. Industries such as leisure and hospitality, for example.
Got it. How about job seekers? How has that changed over time? Well, we found that 47% of Americans have interacted with the job market either actively seeking a new job or passively exploring opportunities within the past 12 months.
And this rate is highest among Gen Z, the youngest generation that we surveyed, which makes sense as they're more likely to be just entering the professional world. And this means the younger workers are more likely to be having firsthand experiences with the job market.
While older people might be informed about the labor market, younger folks are going to have more boots on the ground information shaping their perspectives. Speaking of job seeking, what do the survey results show about how actively people are looking for work right now? About one third of Americans have actively sought a job in the past 12 months.
And by and large, most were looking because they were just ready for a new opportunity. A smaller share were looking because they were actually unemployed.
And this is interesting because we hear a lot about how young people have been having a particularly difficult time in the current job market. And it could be because they're new entrants.
What I mean is if I look for a job, personally, if I look for a job, there's a good chance I'm doing so while employed, right? And even if I lose my job, my resume still lists plenty of experience at this age. Whereas younger folks are more likely to be new to the job market, so they have less experience and they're not beginning from a place of job or financial security.
So when we see low hiring rates, as we do now, this is going to impact new entrants to the labor force more dramatically. Now, I know you and I haven't been on the job hunt in quite some time, but I don't remember it as a particularly enjoyable activity.
What are some of the negative experiences that those surveyed talked about? Yes, I recall it being no fun, but unlike older professionals like myself, younger folks aren't going to know the experience of heading to the mall to fill out applications at the food court or dropping off their resume physically at local businesses. It's a totally different world, but there are different challenges.
And I think most of us have anecdotally heard of job seekers being ghosted. Well, we found that 27% of active job seekers have been ghosted in the past 12 months.
That is, they were in contact with a hiring manager or recruiter at some point, and that person stopped responding. Furthermore, we found 41% of active job seekers applied for a job and never received any response.
So their application wasn't even acknowledged. Now you mentioned something about how things have changed.
We've seen a huge shift in how technology has played a role in hiring, like automation and artificial intelligence. But how do workers actually feel about those changes? While 78 percent of Americans think that technology has made looking for a job easier, just 64 percent think it's made getting hired easier.
And you know, that tracks. You don't have to leave your home to apply for a job now, right? So all else being equal, you can identify and apply to more.
There's just a lower barrier to entry. But this also means you might be more likely to apply to jobs when you're a little uncertain about whether it's actually a good fit for you.
The issue is it's made applying that much easier for everyone. So employers are handling way more applicants than ever, and you're likely in competition with more candidates than you would have been 10 or 20 years ago.
The effects of this could be as far-reaching as employers trying to manage the flow of applicants by filtering them, not responding to all of them, or completely dropping the ball on some of them. They may also make the application and interview process more difficult.
All right, are there any other big takeaways from the survey that were notable in terms of people's perceptions about the current labor market? One thing that I think is worth mentioning, in hopes some recruiters or employers might be listening, is that job seekers pointed out some inconsistencies in job listings that could be preventing these employers from finding the right person. I mean, a better job match is good for all parties involved.
But 14% of job seekers found discrepancies in posted salary ranges in the past 12 months. 13% found out during the interview process that the actual job duties were different from what was advertised.
And 12% found out the job was a contract rather than full-time employment gig. So I think correcting on these things would smooth the process both for job seekers and the people hoping to hire them.
Now, last week we had the most recent jobs report come out. I'm hoping you can sum up some of the big takeaways from it.
Where are we headed? Well, the data tells us where we've been rather than where we're going, and where we've been is definitely clearer right now. The most recent labor market data, the jobs report on the 7th and the jolts on the 11th, both indicate that the labor market was most recently on pretty solid footing.
The economy is adding jobs at a healthy rate, and unemployment remains relatively low. The hiring and quits rates have stabilized, so they're no longer falling, and layoffs remain low and steady.
So that was the January and February picture. These data sources haven't yet captured what we've been seeing in the federal workforce.
You know, a slight decline that we saw in government employment in the February data was more likely a matter of a hiring freeze and natural attrition. But I can say with pretty decent certainty that the data we get in the next month will show some real effects of federal layoffs.
And beyond that, there are additional potential risks on the horizon. Federal layoffs will impact certain industries, but tariffs and general economic uncertainty could stand to impact the labor market on a broader scale.
Elizabeth Renter, thanks so much for joining us today. Hey, thanks, Ana.
Always a pleasure. And thank you, Ana.
Thanks, Sean. Up next, we answer a listener's question about how to help manage aging parents' finances while also dealing with your own financial stresses as a parent.
But before we get into that, a reminder, listener, to send us your money questions. Maybe you want to know whether high-yield savings accounts are still the best place to house your savings, or how to get your credit in shape to buy a house this year.
Whatever your money question, leave us a voicemail or text us on the Nerd Hotline at 901-730-6373. That's 901-730-NERD.
Or email us at podcast at nerdwallet.com. Now let's get to this episode's money question segment that's coming up in a moment.
Stay with us. We're back and answering your money questions to help you make smarter financial decisions.
This episode's question comes from Kay, who sent us an email. Here it is.
Could you please do a podcast with a deeper dive into financial decision-making as a power of attorney for older loved ones while raising kids? I have several questions about talking to older loved ones and managing their finances in order to support their goals and navigating the systems and care that they need. When it comes to being a power of attorney and navigating the financial decisions, where can I go for information, and how do I prioritize which funds to pull from? I'm thinking about pensions, 401ks, social security, estate-slash-trust, etc.
Is there a recommended amount to pull out in order to make sure there's funds for when they are older and need more care? When navigating the medical care and service needs, how much of that is covered by Medicare versus how much is from their funds slash Social Security? To help us answer Kay's question, on this episode of the podcast, we are joined by NerdWallet Medicare Authority and Certified Senior Advisor Kate Ashford. Kate, welcome back to Smart Money.
Hi, Sean. I'm always happy to be here.
So our listener has a lot of pretty specific questions about managing care for their older loved ones while taking care of little ones too, something that's known as being in the sandwich generation because you're sandwiched between caring for typically your parents and your own children. This is a pretty common experience.
About a quarter of U.S. adults fit this description according to the Pew Research Center Center.
Before we get into the nitty-gritty of Kay's questions, I want to hear from you, Kate, about what it's like to be in the situation, because it's something that you have personal experience with, right? Can you tell us about that? Yes, actually, I do have experience with this, fortunately or unfortunately. I landed in a long-distance caregiving role a couple of years ago when my stepfather, who was my mom's primary caregiver, got sick and he wasn't able to care for her anymore and she wasn't able to care for herself.
It was really sudden and I had to step in and put some complicated systems in place to manage things at home and then manage things in assisted living when she moved out of the home and then in the hospital when she got sicker and finally inice care. I live in New York, and she lived in very rural Virginia, so none of this was easy.
Getting services for her wasn't easy. And by the way, I also have two teenagers and a full-time job, so I understand the stress.
It was very stressful. Yeah, I can imagine.
I'm sorry that you had to go through that, and I'm sorry to hear about your mom, too. Oh, thank you.
You described putting complicated systems in place. What did that actually entail? Well, for a time, we had to put caregivers in place.
She couldn't be home by herself. She wasn't mobile.
So we had to put caregivers into the home. But that's complicated, finding people in a very rural part of the state who could be there at the times when we needed.
And then sometimes people didn't show up and family had to step in. So it was the whole thing.
It also sounds really expensive. Yeah.
In-home care is not the cheapest of options, but we were trying to keep her in the home for as long as we could. So it was a good in-between option and she didn't want to leave.
So for the time being, it was helpful to be able to bring in care. And because your stepfather was sick, did he also need your support at that time? So thankfully, my stepfather has an enormous family and they circled the wagons and he was kind of taken care of.
So he was not on my plate, but my mother very much was my responsibility at the time. Yeah.
From however many hundred miles away when you're in New York and she's in Virginia. Exactly.
Well, we'll come back to your story, but I want to dive into Kay's questions as well. Let's start by talking about talking, I guess.
I can imagine that having conversations about potentially managing your parents or another loved one's money could be kind of uncomfortable. There's this sort of role reversal going on.
So how do you recommend people approach what could be a tough conversation or a series of conversations? I think you're exactly right to call it a series of conversations because sitting down and saying something like, mom, it's time for me to take over your finances probably isn't going to create the back and forth you're looking for. Yeah.
So ideally this should happen over time in little moments, starting years before you might actually need to do anything, before anyone is worried or sick. It can be one big conversation if it needs to be.
One approach is to bring up your own planning, estate planning, financial planning, and ask your parents how they've prioritized. So what sorts of things have they put in place and how do they make those decisions? It puts them in the position of being the advisor, which helps.
Did you have conversations with your mom before she needed your care? I actually didn't. I was really lucky in that my mom and stepfather had done all their estate planning without me having to prompt them.
So when I had to step in to manage things, it was really just a matter of going back to their attorney to alter the names on the paperwork. If we had had to start from scratch, it would have been a big process in the middle of something that was already really stressful.
That really makes me think about how much a gift estate planning is to your loved ones, because you basically had the playbook of what your mom wanted, and you could just execute it. Yeah, I mean, it would have been a big sticky thing to try to broach that in the middle of the situation.
So any other thoughts around how people can begin this conversation with their family? Yeah. So sometimes people can bring up something that's happened to a friend of theirs or something they've seen in the news, make something up if you have to, where something happened to a parent and their adult children didn't know where to find all their accounts, say, or their estate planning wasn't done at all.
It's a good way to find out how organized they are and to kind of subtly poke them on the things that they should be doing. Because ideally, they've got something like a will, a living will, and powers of attorney in place.
But this is a good chance to talk about that if they don't. Yeah.
And I would say the sooner you can do that, the better. In a lot of cases, you want to have this conversation when people are pretty clear-headed and not responding to a big, stressful medical event.
Absolutely. And again, the more you can do this in little doses, the less anxious everybody gets, I think.
And it can also be a time-consuming process, and it can be a little expensive, too, depending on how complicated your estate is. So the more you can dole that out over time, the easier it will be to manage.
Oh, for sure. So our listener asked about managing finances for older loved ones as a power of attorney, which in technical terms is called being an agent.
I realize that a lot of people might not be familiar with what it means to be given power of attorney and act as an agent. Can you talk with us about what that entails? There are two kinds of powers of attorney, generally.

Financial power of attorney and healthcare power of attorney, which is sometimes called a medical power of attorney or healthcare proxy. Having financial power of attorney means you can handle your loved one's finances.
So you can sign checks, you can make payments, you can talk to the bank on their behalf. And this can be super helpful if you're in the position of having to move money around or pay bills or pay caregivers.
That said, even though I had power of attorney for my mom, sometimes I had to have her on the phone while I made calls to people so that she could verify that I had her permission to discuss things or to take actions. So it depends on the company.
But what if your loved one is incapacitated and can't actually be on the phone, but you're getting pushback from a company? In that case, and I did have to do this in a couple of cases, you can fax over a copy of the power of attorney paperwork, and then they will talk to you. But it's kind of a thing to get the right person on the phone and fax it to the right place.
Yeah, who has a fax machine nowadays? Who has a fax machine now? Right. Okay, well, let's talk about healthcare power of attorney.
What's the deal with that? So having healthcare power of attorney means, as you might expect, you can make health decisions on your parents' behalf. So if they are incapacitated, you can make decisions about their care.
And even if they're not incapacitated, being a parent's healthcare proxy means you can speak to medical professionals about what's going on with them. When my mom was in the hospital in her state, and I was here in New York, I could call and get an update on what was going on with her care.
I also had access to her healthcare portal so I could see test results as they rolled in. That was super helpful.
That's a password that's nice to have if your parent is willing to share it, particularly if they're sick or getting a lot of medical care. One of the more granular questions that Kay asks is about funding and which sources to prioritize.
If an older loved one has a variety of accounts, like a pension, a 401k, maybe an annuity, are there rules of thumb about which might be better to prioritize drawing from first? Honestly, this is really going to depend on your parents' financial situation and where they're sitting tax-wise. And this can vary from year to year because there may be years when they have more income, like they've sold a home and they may not need to or want to withdraw as much taxable income.
And there'll be other years when they've got more wiggle room or they need to pull more out. So to the extent that it's possible, a financial advisor or tax professional can really help you here.
And advisors are really accessible these days. You can see them in person or online.
Some of them charge a percentage of assets or charge by the hour or charge a fee for a one-time consultation. So you can generally find someone whose services and fee structure kind of match up with what you need.
You mentioned sort of a pension and annuity setup. That would usually show up in steady income payments over time.
So that's just something to factor into the budget along with whatever they're getting for Social Security. Let's go a little more into managing and paying for medical care, which can be one of the toughest areas to talk about with a loved one.
How can you ensure that they're getting the care that they want and not getting the care they don't want while managing expenses? And how does Medicare fit in too? I think the biggest thing to know here is that Medicare does not cover long-term care, which can be a huge expense. If your parents have a long-term care policy or life insurance with a chronic care rider, first of all, that's good to know.
But take a look at it and understand its limitations and what it covers. Unfortunately, most people don't have long-term care coverage.
So paying for things like in-home care, assisted living, or a nursing home will be out of pocket. There are lots of organizations that can answer questions about this.
Your local agency on aging is a great place to start. They can generally point you towards some resources if your parents need help.
But if you have questions, I'm a big believer in asking questions. And then to the extent that they need to see a doctor or be in the hospital, Medicare does cover that kind of care.
Although the way Medicare covers it depends on whether they've chosen original Medicare or Medicare Advantage. And about half of people, 65 and over, are on each.
Original Medicare is provided by the federal government, and you can see any provider in the U.S. that accepts Medicare.
On the other hand, Medicare Advantage is provided by private insurance companies and works more like health insurance you might have had with a job. So there's a network, and you have to use doctors in that network who accept your insurance.
At NerdWallet, we generally recommend that if you can afford Original Medicare with a Medigap plan, which is a supplement that helps cover costs, that's the most flexible way to make sure you're covered if something serious happens. So far, we've been talking about how to talk with your parents, care for your parents.
We haven't talked as much about your kids. Kate, when you were going through your experience with your mom, how did you make sure that your kids were also getting to school on time and hanging out with friends and going to their extracurriculars and had their lunch made, all of those things that you have to do when you're a parent? You know, it's really hard to be managing both things at the same time.
And I definitely put some things on the back burner because I didn't have the time or energy for them. But to the extent that you can be present in your life when you're in your life, you know, help your kids with their homework, take them to school.
Ask for help when you need it so they need rides from people or their parents are there to help you. Remember that you do have a life and needs of your own.
So take walks and get exercise and play with your dog and spend time with your kids. I got really good at appreciating the small joys during this time in my life.
And if you have work benefits that offer access to a therapist or online therapy services, don't be shy about using them. It really helps to talk to someone who isn't your spouse or your friends because you will repeat yourself a lot.
And the situation can be frustrating and overwhelming and heartbreaking. And sometimes it's just nice to lean on a professional.
Yeah, of course. I imagine this might also be a good opportunity to start this dialogue with your kids, depending on how old they are.
You don't want to scare them if they're really young, but having a conversation about what you're experiencing with your mom, with your kids might help them begin to understand that, hey, you might have to care for me one day too. I think it was really helpful for them to see this play out because they were able to see that you at some point may have to take responsibility for an older loved one.
And that's a lot of work and it's really helpful if they put some things in place. And certainly it does help me think about what would I want to have in place? What do I need to do to make their lives easier? So it is a situation that kind of made all of us think about things.
And how old were your kids at this time? At the time, so they were probably 11 and 13. So right in the middle of middle school.
So they had a lot going on in their own lives too. They did.
Well, I'm glad that you could begin to have that dialogue with them and also care for your mom in this really difficult time. Yeah.
Do you have any final thoughts for our listeners or others who might find themselves sandwiched between caring for older loved ones while raising kids? Yes, I do. One thing that doesn't get mentioned a lot is making sure you have at some point all the usernames and passwords for your parents' accounts.
So even if you don't need to use them now, they are really good to have for the future. And I would say, depending on whether your parents are tech savvy, my mother was not, this may be something to put together with them physically next to you.
Because if they've forgotten a password, so many sites now have two-factor authentication and require you to provide a code that's sent to your email or phone. And that could be a nightmare to work through with a parent long distance.
And I say this because it's helpful to have this for lots of reasons. It's a huge help to be able to get into their bank or credit card statements.
So you can check on things or you can manage things if you're in that role. But if they have an issue with the website and they can't access something, you can go in and fix it, even if you aren't on site.
And that's helpful. Although it's incredibly sad to think about when a parent dies, you will need to shut down their accounts.
And that's the last thing you want to be struggling to figure out. Like I needed to cancel my mom's subscription to Netflix and her Amazon Prime account.
And I was super grateful that I had all information before she wasn't able to give it to me anymore. Yeah, that's just one of those things that you would never consider as you're planning the bigger things like healthcare.
It's like, oh, yeah, my mom also has a Netflix account I have to manage at some point. Yeah.
And I really didn't want to get on the phone with Netflix. It just it seems so complicated.
I was happy I had all the information. What a relief.
Well, Kate, thank you so much for coming on and sharing your story and your insights. Absolutely.
Thanks, Sean. That's all we have for this episode.
Remember, listener, that we are here to answer your money questions. So turn to the nerds and call or text us your questions at 901-730-6373.
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