Endurance Home Care CEO Andrew Schwartz published an opinion piece in NJ.com on August 30, 2026, stating that large areas of New Jersey outside major urban centers have limited or no reliable access to in-home care as the state faces a severe caregiver shortage, according to the publication. Schwartz cited the tri-state area’s growing sandwich generation—adults in their 40s and 50s simultaneously raising children and managing aging parents’ care—as evidence that state policy conversations treat elder care as an afterthought while funding flows disproportionately toward institutional models.
TL;DR: Endurance Home Care’s CEO warned that New Jersey’s caregiver shortage forces families into nursing home placements, hospital dependency, or workforce exits while state policy underfunds home-based alternatives.
Market Conditions Driving Workforce Exit
Schwartz described families facing three options when professional caregivers are unavailable: nursing home placement, reliance on hospitals for non-acute needs, or leaving the workforce to provide unpaid care. The economic impact of the third option compounds when a 48-year-old manager or skilled professional resigns to care for a parent, the piece stated. “Society loses a taxpayer and productive worker. The family loses income and future retirement security just as medical expenses are peaking,” Schwartz wrote in the opinion piece. He characterized the pattern, multiplied across tens of thousands of New Jersey households, as an invisible economic drain weakening the state’s tax base.
The shortage particularly affects areas outside Newark, Jersey City, and other major population centers, according to Schwartz’s firsthand observations running operations across the tri-state region. The CEO noted that hospitals receive patients they are not designed to serve—older adults needing daily living assistance rather than acute medical crisis care—creating a readmission cycle that accelerates physical decline.
Agency Expansion Response
Endurance Home Care is expanding its New Jersey operations and actively hiring certified home health aides, Schwartz stated in the opinion piece. The Scotch Plains-based CEO said the agency is offering competitive wages and creating career pathways, framing the recruitment push as infrastructure development rather than shift-filling. “We are helping build a workforce that supports families, seniors and local economies,” he wrote.
The expansion effort targets the same market gap other agencies have attempted to address through multi-channel recruitment strategies, though Schwartz’s piece emphasized policy changes as necessary complements to private-sector hiring. He argued that without state-level workforce development grants and compensation increases reflecting caregiver responsibility, agencies cannot scale fast enough to meet demand driven by New Jersey’s aging population growth.
Policy Recommendations
Schwartz outlined four policy priorities: greater investment in home- and community-based services, workforce development grants to strengthen the caregiving profession, compensation reflecting home care workers’ responsibilities, and policies helping older adults remain safely in their homes. The recommendations positioned home care as a cost-control mechanism, with Schwartz citing studies showing high-quality home care prevents hospital readmissions, reduces fall risks, and delays or eliminates nursing home placement need.
The CEO contrasted state spending patterns with family preferences, stating that institutional care costs taxpayers and families more than home-based alternatives while delivering outcomes most older adults actively avoid. “Trenton routinely directs resources toward institutional models while overlooking alternatives that many families prefer,” Schwartz wrote. The argument aligns with census data showing states with higher home-based care spending record fewer nursing home placements, though Schwartz’s piece focused on New Jersey-specific implementation gaps rather than national trends.
Sandwich Generation Financial Strain
The opinion piece emphasized pressure on working adults managing dual caregiving responsibilities. Schwartz described the demographic group as fielding emergency calls from parents’ doctors during morning meetings, then rushing home to manage homework, household bills, and medication schedules. “The pressure is breaking people and straining our economy,” he stated, positioning elder care infrastructure as equivalent in importance to traditional public services.
The 40-to-50-year-old cohort loses retirement savings accumulation years precisely when medical expenses peak if family members exit the workforce to provide unpaid care, according to Schwartz’s economic analysis. The piece argued that professional in-home care allows adult children to maintain employment, preserve Social Security contributions, and shift from unlicensed nursing roles back to familial relationships. Workplace retention frameworks increasingly recognize the 70 percent of employees who identify as caregivers, though Schwartz’s focus remained on state policy rather than employer accommodations.
The Takeaway
Endurance Home Care’s CEO used a statewide platform to frame New Jersey’s caregiver shortage as a policy failure with measurable economic consequences, not a temporary market imbalance. For home care agencies competing for the same limited workforce, Schwartz’s public positioning as an advocate for state funding increases and workforce development grants may signal a shift from purely competitive recruitment toward industry coalition-building on Medicaid reimbursement rates and training subsidies.
The opinion piece’s publication timing—late August 2026, ahead of New Jersey’s fall legislative session—suggests agencies are treating workforce shortages as requiring regulatory intervention rather than waiting for market corrections. Marketing for assisted living facilities may intensify if families continue defaulting to institutional placement when home care proves unavailable, though Schwartz’s argument that such placements cost more positions home agencies as fiscally responsible alternatives if they can solve the staffing equation. Agencies tracking state budget discussions should note the specific asks: workforce grants, compensation floors tied to responsibility levels, and rebalanced spending away from institutional models toward community-based services.
