STAT+: More workers hate their jobs, but keep them for the health insurance — SkimNews
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- Gallup and West Health surveyed more than 2,000 employed U.S. adults and found almost 25% want to leave their current job but stay solely to keep their health benefits
- The share of workers reporting job lock climbed from 16% in 2021 — when Gallup last measured it — to roughly 24% now, a steep rise in just a few years
- Job lock disproportionately traps workers with more health problems or complex conditions, who face the greatest risk of going uninsured if they switch jobs or careers
- Economists cited by STAT say the phenomenon also suppresses entrepreneurship, keeping would-be business founders tethered to employers because self-employment would cost them coverage
- U.S. workforce has lived with job lock for decades, but the new Gallup-West Health data shows the constraint tightening even as overall employment churn remains high
Why it matters: With roughly 1 in 4 employed Americans now citing health benefits as the reason they stay in a job they want to leave, the U.S. employer-based insurance model is keeping workers less mobile and, economists warn, suppressing new business formation. Workers with chronic or complex conditions — those most likely to need coverage — face the sharpest trade-off between career freedom and health security.
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