Senior care in Iowa: assisted living $5,381 a month, a nursing home $9,277 a month, home care about $41 an hour

OCTOBER 10, 2026 Families in Iowa pay a median $5,381 a month for assisted living, 14% below the national median, and $9,277 a month for a nursing home, according to The ElderCareCosts 2026 Cost of Senior Care Index, published October 10, 2026 by ElderCareCosts.

Agency home care in Iowa works out to about $41 an hour at the survey's 44-hour week, against a median wage of $17.30 an hour for the home health and personal care aides who deliver it (Bureau of Labor Statistics, May 2025). The difference carries payroll taxes, insurance, scheduling and backup coverage, not only margin.

Iowa ranks 40th of 50 states for assisted living cost and 34th of 51 states for nursing home cost (first is most expensive). The index lists 434 assisted living communities, 391 nursing homes, 3 home care agencies, 174 memory care communities and 73 hospice agencies in Iowa, drawn from state licensing registries and federal files.

Iowa medians at a glance

In-home and home health figures assume 44 hours of care a week. Every figure is a modeled statewide median anchored to the latest published national cost survey and adjusted with federal wage data; it is an estimate to plan against, not a quote from any provider.

Paying for it in Iowa

Iowa Medicaid publishes a nursing facility rate of $307.06 a day (median facility daily rate, 2026-01-01). How Iowa Medicaid covers nursing home care and care at home, who in a family may be paid to provide it, and the waiver programs that apply are on the Iowa Medicaid guide. Licensed providers, with inspection records where the state or CMS publishes them, are on the Iowa assisted living directory and the nursing home directory.

Where the numbers live

• Iowa page of the 2026 index, with hourly math, the wage comparison and an embeddable table.
• Iowa data as CSV, every state and city row with its source and period.
• The national index, archived under DOI 10.5281/zenodo.23005532 and listed in the NIH National Library of Medicine Dataset Catalog.

Reuse any figure with attribution to ElderCareCosts Research and a link to the page it came from. No permission is needed.

About ElderCareCosts

ElderCareCosts is a cost-first senior care resource. We publish care costs by care type, state, and city with the source and date on every number. We list licensed providers from government records, not just the ones that pay. We explain how families actually pay: Medicaid, veterans benefits, insurance, and what happens when the money runs out.

We do not hide prices behind forms. We do not have commissioned advisors. We do not remove providers for bad inspection results, and we do not let anyone pay to bury them.

Authorship: ElderCareCosts Research (Organization). Not medical, legal, or financial advice.

Media contact

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The research desk is available for comment, state and metro data cuts, and a CSV of any table on the site.

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