The gap between 55 and 81

Employers estimated that 55% of their workforce was carrying moderate to high stress. Employees put the number at 81%. That 26-point gap is the finding worth keeping from Care.com's 2026 Future of Benefits Report, not the burnout figure, which every survey this year already has.

The gap explains something families feel without naming. Only 37% of employees identify as caregivers, and just 19% say their caregiving needs are well recognized at work. The people doing the work are not calling themselves caregivers, so the employer sees a productivity problem rather than a care problem, and funds a benefit nobody enrolls in. Meanwhile 53% have missed work over caregiving and nearly one in four have considered leaving the workforce altogether.

The provenance caveat is the usual one. Care.com sells care benefits to employers, so this research exists to make the case for buying them. That does not make the gap wrong, and the direction matches everything else on this beat.

There is real money moving here: employers are six times more likely to be expanding caregiving benefits than cutting them. Which means a caregiver's best-funded potential ally may be an HR department that does not yet know who they are.