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Published: October 2009

No job, no insurance delivers an economic knock-out to families

Families USA has released a report that details the "one-two punch" of families losing both their jobs and their health insurance. The report contends that there are far more people in 2009 lacking health coverage than the 46.3 million cited by 2008 Census Bureau data.

Download a copy of the report entitled "One-Two Punch: Unemployed and Uninsured"

Below is an excerpt from the report:

The economic downturn that began in 2007 has had a profound effect on families across the nation. Millions of working Americans have lost their jobs, and, with each passing month, that number grows. For many, the loss of a job also means the loss of health coverage. This one-two punch deals a painful blow to the economic security of American families, leaving them at risk of shouldering the high cost of care on their own should illness strike.

According to data recently released by the Census Bureau, some 46.3 million people lacked health coverage in 2008. However, the economy has changed a great deal since 2008: Unemployment continued to rise through the first eight months of 2009, even as recovery efforts worked to reverse this trend. And, as unemployment rises, the proportion of uninsured working-age Americans grows.

Thus, given the substantial increase in unemployment between 2008 and today, the latest Census Bureau data, which reflect the insurance status of Americans in 2008, underestimate the number of people who are uninsured today. To get a clearer picture of the current crisis of the uninsured, a more in-depth look at the link between unemployment and uninsurance is needed. In this report, Families USA provides a state-by-state analysis of the likely magnitude of the increase in uninsured working-age adults in 2009 due to rising unemployment.

Given the close link between unemployment and uninsurance, and given the marked increase in the unemployment rate between 2008 and 2009, we estimate that the number of uninsured working-age adults (19-64) today is substantially higher than the Census Bureau’s 2008 estimate.

In 2008, the national unemployment rate ranged from 4.8 percent to 7.2 percent and averaged 5.8 percent. It reached a high of 9.7 percent in August 2009, averaging 8.9 percent for the first eight months of the year

For More Information

Families USA

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Consumer Protection   ♦   Health   ♦   Insurance   ♦