Employer-Sponsored Health Insurance Erosion Accelerates in the Recession

Abstract

From 2000 to 2009, the share of non-elderly Americans covered by employer-sponsored health insurance (ESI) fell 9.4 percentage points. Although the economy was already in a recession in 2008, it continued to dramatically deteriorate in 2009. From 2008 to 2009, the unemployment rate rose 3.5 percentage points, the largest one-year increase on record. As most Americans under age 65 rely on health insurance obtained through the workplace, it is no surprise that ESI fell sharply from 2008 to 2009 at a rate three times as high as in the first year of the recession. Over the 2000s, no demographic or socioeconomic group has been spared from the erosion of job-based insurance. Both genders and people of all ages, races, education, and income levels have suffered declines in coverage. Workers across the wage distribution, in small and large firms alike, and even those working full-time and in white-collar jobs have experienced losses. Along with sharp declines in ESI, the share of those under age 65 without any insurance increased 3.3 percentage points from 2000 to 2009. Increasing public insurance coverage, particularly among children, is the only reason the uninsured rate did not rise one-for-one with losses in ESI.