Roughly 53 million Americans serve as unpaid family caregivers, according to research compiled by AARP’s Public Policy Institute. Nearly half report pulling back on their own retirement savings to absorb the financial weight that government benefits don’t fully reach. Monique Washington, a 43-year-old UPS driver from Baltimore, Maryland, belongs to that group — though she’d be the last person to volunteer that information.
When I met Monique on a gray Tuesday afternoon in late March, she walked into the diner near her Northeast Baltimore home still wearing her brown delivery uniform and steel-toed boots. She had just dropped her brother Marcus off at a daytime care program and had exactly ninety minutes before she needed to pick him up. She ordered black coffee and didn’t look at the menu.
“I don’t really take breaks,” she told me, wrapping both hands around the mug. “Not real ones, anyway.”
A Family’s Life, Rerouted by One Accident
In 2008, Marcus Washington was 25 years old and working as a warehouse supervisor outside Baltimore when a distracted driver ran a red light and struck the passenger side of his car. The collision left him with a traumatic brain injury and permanent mobility limitations requiring daily assistance. He has lived with some level of supervised care ever since.
Their parents, Delores and Raymond Washington, became Marcus’s primary caregivers while Monique — then in her mid-twenties — helped when she could. For nearly a decade, the family managed together: imperfectly, exhaustingly, but together. Then Delores died in 2016 from heart disease. Raymond followed two years later. Monique, at 35, became the only one left.
“I didn’t decide to become his caregiver,” she said, her voice flat and careful. “There wasn’t a decision. There was just me, and there was him, and there was nobody else.”
She moved Marcus into her home in 2018 and reorganized her entire life around his schedule. She switched to a morning UPS route so she could be home by afternoon. She gave up weekend overtime. She stopped contributing to her supplemental retirement savings account — something she frames now, six years later, not as a choice but as arithmetic.
What SSDI Pays — and the Gap Monique Fills Every Month
Marcus was approved for Social Security Disability Insurance in 2010, roughly two years after his accident. Because he had only a few years of reported earnings before the crash, his monthly benefit came in well below the national average. As of early 2026, he receives approximately $1,040 per month — a figure Monique knows down to the dollar because she helps manage his finances.
Marcus also receives Medicare — which activated after the mandatory 24-month waiting period following his SSDI approval — and Medicaid through Maryland’s program. Together, those programs cover a significant portion of his core medical care. But Monique was direct about what they leave out.
“Medicaid doesn’t pay for the accessible van service we use three times a week,” she said. “It doesn’t cover the specialized seat cushions that keep him from getting pressure sores. It doesn’t cover the extra hours of home aide time when I’m on a long route and can’t be back by 3 p.m.” She paused. “That’s my money. Every month.”
She estimates she spends between $900 and $1,100 monthly on supplemental costs that fall outside what Marcus’s benefits cover. On a UPS Teamsters wage of roughly $42 per hour — solid by any measure — she should be comfortable. Instead, that gap consumes a meaningful slice of her take-home pay, month after month, with no reimbursement and no scheduled end.
The Retirement Math She Stopped Running
Monique has a Teamsters pension through her UPS employment, which accrues based on her years of service and will pay out when she reaches retirement age. What she stopped five years ago was contributing to a supplemental savings account — the additional cushion workers typically build alongside any pension to cover healthcare, housing, and the unexpected costs of later life.
“I know what the math looks like,” she said. “I stopped running it because there’s nothing I can do about it right now, and looking at it just makes me angry.”
According to the Social Security Administration, a worker’s future retirement benefit is calculated using their 35 highest-earning years. Years with reduced contributions create lower figures in that lifetime average. At 43, Monique still has a meaningful runway to rebuild — but she knows every year she doesn’t contribute is a year she won’t recover.
She has also not taken a real vacation in six years. Not a week away — not even a long weekend. When I asked what she would do with seven uninterrupted days if she somehow had them, she was quiet for a long moment.
“Sleep,” she said finally. “I’d probably just sleep.”
Programs She Didn’t Know Existed — and the Ones That Still Don’t Reach Her
During our conversation, I mentioned ABLE accounts — tax-advantaged savings vehicles available to individuals with qualifying disabilities under the Achieving a Better Life Experience Act. Marcus may be eligible to hold one, which would allow him to save up to $18,000 annually without affecting his SSDI or Medicaid eligibility. Monique had never heard of it.
She also wasn’t aware that Maryland’s Medicaid waiver program — which offers expanded home- and community-based services — often carries waiting lists measured in months or years. Marcus applied in 2022. Monique said she had heard nothing since.
“Nobody told us about any of this when he got approved for SSDI,” she said. “You get the benefit amount and a Medicare card and that’s basically it. You figure out the rest yourself.”
The programs that might ease her burden exist in fragments across different agencies, eligibility windows, and application timelines. Navigating them requires time Monique doesn’t have and information she was never given.
A Story Without a Clean Ending
Near the end of our time together, I asked Monique whether she regretted any of it. She gave me a long, measured look before answering.
“I don’t regret taking care of Marcus,” she said slowly. “He didn’t ask to get hurt. He didn’t ask for any of this either.” She set her coffee cup down. “What I resent — and I’m allowed to say that — is that the system makes it feel like it’s on me to figure it out alone. Like because I’m managing, it must be fine.”
It is not fine, exactly. She is managing, which is a different thing. Her retirement picture is murkier than it should be at 43. Her brother’s benefits leave a gap she has been filling with her own wages for years. And she has no clear plan for what happens if her health, her route, or her shift schedule changes.
When I left the diner, Monique was already on her phone coordinating Marcus’s afternoon pickup. She waved without looking up. She had twelve minutes.
Caregivers like Monique — doing essential, invisible work that the disability benefits system was never fully designed to account for — exist by the millions. The benefits Marcus receives are real and meaningful. They are also not enough. And the person absorbing the difference is someone who has not stopped working in six years, has almost nothing saved beyond a pension she doesn’t control, and cannot remember the last time she slept past 6 a.m.
That gap has a name. It just doesn’t have a check attached to it.
Leave a Reply