Employees who get COVID-19 will lose an estimated $33.3 billion in wages
Oakland – December 20, 2021 – The cost to employers for absent workers due to COVID-19 is estimated to total over $78.4 billion over the past 22 months according to an analysis from the Integrated Benefits Institute (IBI) to quantify the broader productivity impacts of the pandemic. This is over a $25 billion increase since a previous analysis conducted by the health and productivity research non-profit in April 2021 and consistent with average losses approaching $1 billion per week.
IBI’s assessment includes potential sick leave wages, short-term disability payments and spending on employee benefits. The breakdown of costs is as follows:
| Disability wage payments | $16.6 billion |
| State disability insurance (specific to California and New York) |
$2.2 billion |
| Sick leave wages | $24.3 billion |
| Employee benefits | $35.3 billion |
| Total Costs to Employers | $78.4 billion |
The states with the highest lost work time costs are California, Texas, and New York. Looking more closely, metropolitan areas that have the largest lost work time cost burden are New York-Newark- Jersey City; Los Angeles-Long Beach-Santa Ana; and Chicago-Naperville-Joliet.
“As we continue to adapt and adjust to new challenges including the omicron variant, it’s important now more than ever to look holistically at benefit costs,” said IBI President Kelly McDevitt. “Medical, pharmacy, mental health and wellness costs are critically important, but productivity and presenteeism have become a lynchpin to successful attraction, retention, growth, and satisfaction.”
As of December 8, there were 49.3 million total cases of COVID-19 in the US. When looking at urban area trends, Miami’s case numbers are flattening, while Phoenix, Minneapolis and Detroit are steadily rising.
“The true cost of the COVID-19 pandemic to employers is far more than just the expense of workplace sanitization, testing, and masks,” said Joseph Aller, Director, Research and Analytics, IBI. “A holistic view of productivity presents a more accurate overall cost estimation.”
IBI used employment, wage and leave benefit data from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics and lost workday experiences contained in its own dataset of employer-sponsored disability claims to model lost work time impacts based on the total US COVID-19 case count. Population data from the US Census Bureau was also incorporated to reflect geographic variation in COVID-19 cases, employment patters, industry mix, and wages.
For more details, a regularly updated interactive map, as well as an infographic, are available on IBI’s website.
The Integrated Benefit Institute’s independent research, industry-leading tools and data resources help companies link health-related programs to the outcomes that maximize the contributions of people to productivity and business performance. Founded in 1995, IBI is a national nonprofit research organization and business association serving 1,200 employer and supplier members and their 22 million employees. For additional information, please visit www.ibiweb.org and follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn.