In a May 2022 report, we estimated the size of the care economy, including both unpaid and paid caregiving, at up to $6 trillion, approaching a quarter of total US GDP. (See Exhibit 1.) This segment of the economy is expanding very fast but remains precarious, with little coordinated action so far to address gaps and organize comprehensive solutions. Now, we’ve quantified what these gaps in the care economy cost the US in GDP every year. We forecast that the US will lose about $290 billion a year in GDP in 2030 and beyond if we fail to fix two critical care-economy dynamics: (1) the lack of available workers to fill a dramatically increasing number of these hands-on jobs, and (2) the departure of productive employees from the paid labor force to take on unpaid-care duties, whether they want to or not. That economic loss is equivalent to losing half of the annual GDP growth projected from 2022– 2023. (author abstract)