The engine for the new care economy.

The largest unpriced economy in the country — and it's breaking.

About 93 million Americans provide unpaid care worth roughly $1.01 trillion a year, while the paid workforce faces millions of openings on poverty wages and turnover as high as 80%. The public programs that fund care exist — but an agency take of 40–50% means little of the dollar reaches the family.

co-op.care fixes the take rate and the trust gap at once. Families, neighbors, and caregivers join a member-owned cooperative and exchange care through two lanes: a closed-loop Care Token (one banked hour, at par) for mutual aid, and dollars for paid care. Every visit is verified three ways — who (identity), that it happened (escrow or EVV), and that it helped (an outcome scored on the Omaha System). Verified care unlocks the public dollars a family is owed and grows each member's patronage equity. An AI account gives every member a personalized dashboard that does the hard parts, so a person only has to show up and care.

The same verification-and-delivery machine serves five customers, each paying for a different output: families, the caregiver who becomes an owner, PACE programs, community hospitals, and self-insured employers and schools. The wedge is free consumer signup; the revenue is the network selling verified, outcome-proven care to the risk-bearers who save when care works.

The one thing co-op.care has that the incumbents lack: they sell scarcity to the few; we sell belonging to the many — while still using their curation playbook on the supply side.

The numbers are stark — and three things are newly true.

The paid workforce sits at a $17.36 median hourly wage with extreme turnover (PHI). Employers lose $17–34 billion a year to caregiving-related lost productivity — about $5,600 per affected employee (AARP; Johns Hopkins). And among caregivers, feeling supported nearly halves the high-strain risk; peer support, when found, raises the sense of support from 50% to 79% (ARCHANGELS/SSRS, Jan 2025).

Why this is buildable now

• check_circle AI can carry the back office that made caregiving-as-a-business impossible for ordinary people.
• check_circle Payers are shifting to outcomes. CMS is tightening Medicare Advantage supplemental benefits in 2026 to those shown to improve health — which rewards a platform that can prove benefit.
• check_circle Public money for family care is arriving. Washington's WA Cares launches July 2026 and pays family caregivers (up to $36,500), alongside Medicaid self-direction and the proposed Credit for Caring Act.

A care utility — four layers, plus an AI front door.

The AI account — the accessibility unlock

Every member gets a personalized, proactive dashboard built from their activity and predicted needs. It matches, schedules, verifies, drafts benefit notes for clinician sign-off, assembles billing and tax documents, surfaces eligible funding, and flags anomalies — escalating clinical judgment and money movement to humans.

Decisions already made — and why.

Two lanes never merge

The Care Token is one hour, at par, closed-loop, never cashable, never sold, never appreciating — which keeps it clear of securities (Howey) and money-transmitter law. What appreciates is patronage equity.

Family care is tracked, not tokenized

Caring for your own circle is logged for coordination and routed to dollars (Medicaid self-direction, WA Cares, Credit for Caring) — it never mints spendable tokens. Tokens are for reciprocity beyond your own circle.

Instant co-op, legal handled

Members join the existing cooperative rather than forming an entity, so onboarding is immediate. When a caregiver is paid, the management company acts as the Fiscal/Employer Agent — payroll, taxes, workers' comp, background checks — so families are never compliance-bearing employers. Live-in arrangements use a triangular ledger that nets room-and-board against care with a live minimum-wage-floor check.

Universal Basic Care Income.

A floor of care income for the people who do society's care work — delivered and proven through verified rails so it is trusted and not gameable. WA Cares (benefits from July 2026, paying family caregivers) is a working prototype; 163 guaranteed-income pilots across 33 states and the Credit for Caring Act point the same way. co-op.care does not fund UBCI; it makes any care-income program administrable and trustworthy. That is the policy wedge and the mission.

The rest is shared with members, partners, and investors.

The sections above are the whole thesis, in the open. The operator's plan — customers & go-to-market, the money and the flows, the moats, the risk map, where we are today, and the build sequence — is shared with the people who join us in it. Have an access key? It opens right here.

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