Friend,

Take a look at this EPI chart, which shows that as annual wages for the bottom 90% have risen steadily over the last 20 years, so has the cost of single and family health care premiums.
 
This chart makes it clear that rapidly rising premium costs are weighing down on wage growth. (Wages in red; rising health care costs in blue).
Because we are interested in growth rates of health care costs, and because these growth rates are influenced by price changes, neither of these series are adjusted for inflation; instead, we simply track nominal growth in both measures.
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This happens both directly, as workers have to dip into their own wages to cover their share of health care premiums; and, indirectly, since the employer contributions to cover health care costs represent money that could have gone into workers’ paychecks.
 
If we were to control the rising cost of health care in America, both workers and their employers would benefit.
 
EPI is powering our movement for progressive economic change, demanding wages and benefits that lift up working families. If you value EPI’s critical research, please consider a donation today.
 
More than 30 years after our founding, EPI’s deep bench of economists generate detailed reports year after year that highlight inequalities in our economy.
 
Amid this terrible pandemic that has caused so much financial stress throughout our country, we need this critical work now more than ever to guide policy makers and activists as we fight for progressive economic change.
 
Thank you for all you do to lift up working families throughout our country.
 
Onward together,
 
Eve Tahmincioglu
Director of Communications, Economic Policy Institute
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