The Hours Where Home Care Costs More Than Assisted Living, by State

How to read this

The hourly rate is the published 2025 in-home care monthly median converted at the survey's own 44-hour week, under cost model cost-model-v1.4.0. The crossover is the weekly hours at which that rate, times the weeks in a month, equals the state's assisted living median. Each state's own figures are in the table so the arithmetic can be checked row by row.

States where the crossover comes early are usually states where home care wages are high relative to assisted living rent, which tracks housing costs more than labor. States where it comes late have cheap labor and expensive buildings, or both.

The crossover is a price comparison, not a recommendation. Assisted living bundles housing, meals and some care; home care at the same hours leaves the family carrying the home. Which side is the better buy depends on what the household already pays for and how much care is actually needed.

Methodology

The hourly rate is each state's published in-home care monthly median converted at the survey's own full-time week, the same conversion used on every cost page on this site. The crossover is the number of weekly hours at which that rate, multiplied by the weeks in a month, equals the state's assisted living median. A second column repeats the arithmetic against the nursing home median.

Only states with both an in-home care median and an assisted living median are included. The nursing home column is blank where that median is missing rather than filled from another state.

Both medians and the implied hourly rate are printed in every row, and in the download, so the crossover can be rebuilt by hand.

Sitewide cost and data method: Methodology · Data sources · Corrections

What this cannot tell you

This is a price comparison between two modeled medians, not a recommendation. Assisted living bundles housing, meals and some care; home care at the same hours leaves the household paying for the home as well. Which side is the better buy depends on what the household already pays for and how much care it actually needs.

The hourly rate is derived from a monthly figure at a fixed weekly-hours basis. Agencies usually charge more per hour for short shifts and less for live-in arrangements, so the crossover for a family buying a few hours a day sits earlier than the table shows, and the crossover for round-the-clock care sits later.

Assisted living medians are base rates. Care-level surcharges, which most residents pay, move the crossover later. Memory care, which is priced above assisted living, is not compared here.

The two sides share an input. Our cost model spreads survey medians across geographies using the same wage series on both sides, so small differences between states should not be read as findings. The overall shape of the table is robust; the exact order of neighboring states is not.