Nursing home care spending grew by 6.9% year over year in December, with 62% of the increase due to increased utilization rather than price increases. Prices for the sector, meanwhile, increased 2.2% year over year, below the health care composite price index increase of 2.7%.

Initial data shows that nursing home care spending for the entirety of 2024 grew 9.6% compared to 2023, according to the February 2025 Health Sector Economic Indicators Briefs, published by Altarum.

Monthly national spending estimates for nursing home care was $189.5 billion in December 2021, Altarum found, and increased to $238.8 billion in December 2024.

Nursing and residential care facility employment combined exceeded prepandemic levels for the first time this year, adding 13,200 jobs in January to meet this goal, Altarum found. Broken down further, nursing care facilities alone added 7,100 jobs in January, contributing to a year-over-year increase of 3.7%.

“This is well above the average monthly increase over the last twelve months of 4,800, but employment is still 4% below pre-pandemic levels,” Matt Daly, contributor to the report, said in a statement. Daly refers only to nursing care facilities rather than the combination of nursing and residential care facilities.

Nursing and residential care facility wages grew by 4% in December compared to December 2023, continuing at a pace of recent months, Daly said, of 4% on average between September and November, and also similar to December 2023 at 3.9%.

Meanwhile, hospitals and ambulatory health care services saw wage growth of 5.1% and 4.3%, respectively.

The overall hiring rate was 3.4% and jobs opening rate was 5.7% in December; the unemployment rate was down 0.1% to end January at 4%. Overall national health spending grew by 7.4% in 2024, and personal health care spending grew by 7.9%.

In terms of insurance prices, year-over-year private insurance prices growth for services was 3.7%, overtaking Medicaid growth of 2.3% and Medicare service price increases of 1.6%.