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As many as 4.1 million people may still be out of work due to symptoms caused by “long COVID-19,” accounting for roughly 2% of the U.S. workforce, according to new data.
More than 16 million adults have reported experiencing long COVID-19, which occurs when one experiences coronavirus symptoms for three months or longer, making up about 8% of the working-age population.
JOBS DATA SHOW TWO POST-COVID AMERICAS
Of those, between 1.8 million and 4.1 million have reported being forced out of work because of those symptoms, resulting in an annual loss of $170 billion in wages, according to data compiled by the Brookings Institution.
“If long Covid patients don’t begin recovering at greater rates, the economic burden will continue to rise,” wrote Katie Bach, a nonresident senior fellow at Brookings Institution. “To give a sense of the magnitude: If the long Covid population increases by just 10% each year, in 10 years, the annual cost of lost wages will be half a trillion dollars.”
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The numbers far surpass initial numbers from January that estimated only 1.6 million full-time workers were out due to long COVID-19, giving possible answers as to why there are still labor shortages more than two years after the pandemic.
