The care your elderly relative receives in a nursing home depends on an adequate number of trained staff being present every shift. That equation is under increasing pressure, and a growing number of nursing home operators say the pressure is becoming unsustainable.
Long-term care facilities across the United States were already operating well below optimal staffing levels before 2026. Nearly half of U.S. nursing homes report limiting admissions because of staffing shortages, and only 19% currently meet the minimum staffing levels mandated by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services by 2029, according to research published in JAMA. Now, immigration enforcement actions affecting legally working foreign-born employees are compounding those deficits at exactly the moment when the aging Baby Boomer generation is driving demand for long-term care to a generational peak.
