Authors: Sumathi Reddy<\/a> August 25, 2022 The Wall Street Journal<\/p>\n\n\n\n Between two million and four million Americans aren\u2019t working due to the long-term effects of Covid-19, according to a new Brookings Institution report<\/a> released Wednesday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The inability to work translates to roughly $170 billion a year in lost wages, the report estimates. It follows a January Brookings Institution report that estimated long Covid was potentially causing 15% of the country\u2019s labor shortage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The report estimates that roughly 16 million Americans of working age\u2014between 18 and 65\u2014have long Covid, which most groups and doctors define as\u00a0wide-ranging symptoms that persist for months<\/a>\u00a0following an infection and can include shortness of breath, extreme fatigue and neurocognitive issues.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n An estimated 10% to 30% of people with Covid develop the condition, according to studies and estimates from governments, hospitals, universities and doctors. It can occur after even mild cases. Long Covid\u2019s impact is being felt on workplaces with employees not well enough to work and patients struggling to financially support themselves, as well as family members having to act as caregivers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThree million full-time-equivalent workers is 1.8% of the entire U.S. civilian labor force,\u201d said Katie Bach, a nonresident senior fellow at the Washington, D.C.-based think tank and author of both Brookings reports.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n A roughly 1.8% reduction in the U.S. workforce is in line with estimates from other countries. In a May speech<\/a> a former Bank of England committee member attributed a 1.3% drop in labor-force participation to \u201clong-term sickness,\u201d citing long Covid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ms. Bach said she used data from the U.S. Census Bureau<\/a>, which recently added four long-Covid questions to its June household survey. She also used a recent Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis study<\/a>, a survey from the United Kingdom\u2019s Trades Union Congress<\/a>, and a Lancet study<\/a> from a long Covid advocacy group for the report.<\/p>\n\n\n\n David Cutler, a health economist and professor of economics at Harvard University, has also calculated the economic cost of long Covid<\/a>. According to his estimates, the total cost is $3.7 trillion. <\/p>\n\n\n\n He breaks the costs down to reduced quality of life, reduced earnings and increased medical spending.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cSo if you say, is it worth it to spend $50 billion on long Covid\u2026there\u2019s almost no amount of money that you could spend that you could feel like is too much money,\u201d said Dr. Cutler.<\/p>\n\n\n\n