One year ago this month, the first wave of COVID-19 cases in the United States led to widespread job loss throughout the country.1 Early in the pandemic, there was serious concern that the impact of these job losses would lead millions of workers to lose job-based health insurance coverage, causing a dramatic spike in uninsurance.
Evidence to date suggests that the number of uninsured people has not risen as greatly as initially feared. Although the number of jobs in the United States remains about 9.5 million below pre-pandemic levels,2 workers in the industries that were most affected by the pandemic’s economic damage tended not to have job-based coverage to begin with.