You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer and Bloomberg Quick Takes Tim Stinovic on Bloomberg Radio. Today is the beginning of Autism Awareness Month. According to the CDC, Autism effects and estimated one in forty four children in the US today, and as we know, Tim impacts many more if you take into account those families with a member who has autism. Charlie Massimo is senior vice president and financial advisor with the Wealth Enhancement Group of Voice
that our listeners know well. He also specializes in planning for families that are impacted by autism. Charlie, it's good to talk to you again. How are you. I'm great, Thanks for having me to get back. Yeah, thanks for
joining us on this. It's a really important one. And I don't want to talk a little bit about um the misconceptions here because I think, as you rightly point out uh In in your materials that you you sent our producer Paul Brennan, uh A lot of focus around autism has really been about kids, as Carol mentioned, but this isn't something that that stops with childhood. And when we think about autism, we also have to think about
adults who are affected by it. Yeah, you know, as a parent of two boys with autism, what I found out is, you know, when they're when they're in school, services were great. Once they age out eighteen or twenty one, services kind of fall off a cliff and the onus comes back on the family to care for them on a daily basis. Not only not only day to day, but the financial impact that that has on a family for the rest of their life is pretty devastating for many,
you know. And it's interesting. I was just checking um the CDC. I think was it just last year, Um, Charlie that they put out an estimate on the number of adults living with autism spectrum disorder in the US. And I think it was like five point four UM millions, about two and a quarter percent of the adults in the US. So it's it's a significant and sizeable population. Why is it that we haven't as a society you think, stepped up more in terms of our awareness and acknowledgement, uh,
in doing more? Yeah, I think you bring up a great point. And while it's changed, it's certainly I call autism the the invisible population, because when you look at a child or adult with autism. Sometimes it's really difficult to tell if they actually have autism. And you look at them and say, well, they're fine, and the and the issue is they're really not fine. Um and and your point. You know, one in fifty one and forty five adults of autism, and it costs from from the
age of eighteen for the rest of their life. The c d C also estimates it costs about one point eight million dollars per family to care for an adult with autism. And again, when you think of family that again, how much one point eight million dollars is that from child from childhood through adulthood. No, it's mostly most of that cost is eighteen and after a cost about anywhere from two point three to three point three million dollars to raise a child with autism throughout their life, and
most of that again occurs after eighteen. And again the issue is while they're in school. A lot of those services that covet after school, a lot of after they graduate, A lot of those expenses, you know, fall back on the parents and those doctors and psychiatrists and programs that are really good in this country or in New York, A lot of them don't take insurances, it's mostly private pay so so again, when you think of a family, it's trying to prepare for their own retirement or plan
for a typical child. To then put an autistic child on top of that, it becomes very difficult for these families to plan throughout their life. So Charlie, what is what do you do when you try to to specialize and help plan for families who are impacted by autism? How do you how do you help families financially cope with this? I think the first thing is we have to make them realize, you know what, this is life long. And again we have to make them realize what the
true expense may be. And then I think we have to help them plan in buckets. Again, you can't. The biggest mistake I find families they commingle all their assets together, their their own retirement assets, their typical child's assets for college, and they plan in one bucket. And I think that's
the biggest mistake. I think you have to really plan in buckets and carve out certain moneys and understand what those costs will be for for these families and for these young adults that again are going to need the
financial supports throughout their entire life. What's a typical family that you that you work with in terms of figuring out a plan, because I also do wonder, you know, Charlie, that they're probably certain um families that have more means, you know, and they obviously can probably more easily do it. Then you're probably I would assume families that don't and maybe they get more assistance from public assisians, but then there's probably folks in the middle. Just got about forty seconds.
What's what's the typical family? Like, Yeah, I think again again there is no really typical family when you deal with autism. But I think what you have to realize, and this is a misnomer, of adults with autism received no governmental supports for housing, and housing becomes is the big GETT issue because again most most adults live with their parents until their parents die, and that becomes a
critical issue. So again housing is an issue that families have to realize they're not going to get much governmental supports for housing, so they really need to plan for the expenses of housing for for for the rest of their life, for their children. Charlie Massa, Most Senior Vice president and financial advisor of the Wealth Enhancement Group. Thank you so much for joining US. I know you're also
a founder of autism Communities. I do want to note Carol, that US Autism Homes is having its first doggy Dash in Southampton on Saturday, April nine at ten am. You can go to u S Autism Homes dot org to learn more and to register.