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Health Care Sheds 43,000 Jobs in March, the Biggest Loss in at Least Three Decades

Today’s jobs report begins to reveal the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on employment. More than 700,000 jobs were lost since February.

March 2021 Health Sector Economic Indicators Briefs

Did National Health Spending in 2020 Decline for the First Year in Recorded History? Preliminary Data Say It Did

For the first year since at least 1960 – when the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) began tracking national health expenditures – total health spending in 2020 was less than in the previous year. 

How Should We Interpret the COVID-Related Reduction in Health Spending?

The rapid decline and subsequent rebound in the use of health care services and associated health spending in the U.S. as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic has been well documented. Spending on PHC from September 2020 through February 2021 has averaged nearly 0.5% below the same period the year before, suggesting that the pace of the recovery in spending has stalled, at least temporarily.

December 2021 Health Sector Economic Indicators Briefs

In this month’s Health Sector Economic Indicators briefs, we incorporate new CMS health expenditure data for 2020 and show the impact of federal spending on near-record growth, while healthcare prices rise slightly and 2021's labor trends persist. 

June 2022 Health Sector Economic Indicators Briefs

National health spending is declining as a share of GDP, health care price growth remains well below economywide inflation, and health employment continues to show moderate growth.

Travel and Wait Times Are Longest for Health Care Services and Result in an Annual Opportunity Cost of $89 Billion

According to data analyzed from the BLS American Time Use Survey, accessing professional health care services required on average 34 minutes of travel and 11 minutes of waiting, a burden that hasn’t changed over the past 11 years.

The Climb Back – Health Care Regains 20% of Jobs Lost in the Pandemic

Health care jobs have begun to return, starting with the outpatient settings that were most impacted by the Covid-19 shutdown.

Health Spending Rebound Continues into June Amidst Economic Devastation and New Covid-19 Fears

With yesterday’s release of U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) data for the second quarter of 2020, dire economic anxieties were confirmed as we saw the worst reading in the series’ history (which goes back to 1947): a drop of 32.9% at a seasonally adjusted annual rate.