If the room rate is $4200/mo, thats $294 more a month, or $3528 more the next year! Then another 7% the next year would be another $3775/yr! After 2 years you are paying $7300 more a year then when you first start. Is that standard in the industry? They even said sometimes its more :( Seems predatory as no one wants to go through the process and relocate once settled in a place.
Super frustrating is my parent was already in a AL and the price increased after a year, 8%, made her shared room rate more than the advertised rate for a studio, so it seems they are still taking people in at a lower rate with a disclaimer 'Prices listed are subject to availability and only available to new residents. ' which makes it seem more predatory as they plan to increase the rates after they are settled in. The business model seems like they count on a yearly increase higher than inflation rates to increase profits, and that seems the norm.
(needs have changed so we are looking again or we would have just stayed).
There are separate charges for additional help needed, and those rates would go up separate as more services were added, so any decline requiring more help would be seen on that side not the room rate side.
When my brother entered care he got a full contract and packet and in it was listed all levels of care, what they consisted of, what added cost they added. Also it was said 5 years ago to "expect 3% to 5% raise yearly IF there were no special circumstances of added costs to facility, which would include inflation factors and etc. THEN COVID HIT. You can imagine what happened? All estimates went out the window. My brother died in the early times of covid, not of the virus, but from something other. But I would imagine costs went up.
If you want to see what cost norms are in your own area then a call around and visits to facilities will help inform you.
Memory care? Double the amounts above is what you are looking at.
Things are getting much more expensive. Caregivers have other job options. Two recent business mag/rag articles say that hedge funds and corporations no longer wish to buy into extended care facilities because of their "uncertain futures in profitability". That's a huge change.
I don't hold out a lot of hope with a massive aging populace for the future cost and manageability of caregiving in the USA. Time will tell. You raise an interesting issue, but the prices you are quoting? They are VERY reasonable.
Now that is just my brain working I have never had to place someone in a facility of any kind for a long term, I had my Husband in a MC facility for Respite but that was a few weeks.