How Many Workers Get Health Insurance At Work?

Did you know that employers are not required by law to provide access to health insurance?   Some people believe that the law requires companies to provide health insurance.  There is no such federal law.  Most full time workers do have access to health insurance from their employer.  Its considered a standard benefit in the US to get health insurance from your place of employment.   However not all employers offer health insurance to their full time workers and few offer it to part time employees.

The BLS tracks data on benefits for workers and they have a table with the stats for medical care benefits for workers.

In private industry 71% of workers have access to health insurance from their employers. 

Only 51% of employees participate in an employers health insurance program.   That means that among the workers with the health insurance option 73% of people take the insurance.  There are various reasons why someone with the option of health insurance wouldn't sign up.  For one they may have a spouse working at another job with better or cheaper insurance covering the family.  Individuals may choose not to sign up for insurance because the cost is higher than they can or want to pay.  

Access to health care insurance for various demographics:

Full time employees : 86%
Part time employees : 24%

Unionized : 91%
non-Union : 68%

Workers with lowest 10% of wages : 23%
Workers with highest 10% wages : 92%

Employees of companies with 1 to 49 workers : 55%
Employees of companies with 500 or more workers : 88%

Service jobs : 44%
Management, business and financial : 94%