<p>U.S. Department of Commerce
Economics and Statistics Administration
U.S. CENSUS BUREAU
census.gov
Household Economic Studies
Employment-Based Health Insurance: 2010
Hubert Janicki
P70-134
Issued February 2013
INTRODUCTION
More than half of the U.S. population (55.1 percent)
had employment-based health insurance coverage in
2011, and among the employed population aged 18
to 64, over two-thirds (68.2 percent) had health insur-
ance through their own employer or another person’s
employer.1 In addition, over one-third (34.7 percent)
of individuals who did not work received coverage
through employment-based health insurance, usually
from a former employer or another person’s employer.
This report uses data from the Survey of Income and
Program Participation (SIPP) to examine the character-
istics of people with employer-provided health insur-
ance coverage as well as characteristics of employers
that offer health insurance. This documentation of the
current distribution of employment-based health insur-
ance coverage across socioeconomic characteristics is
needed to establish the changes associated with recent
health care legislation. The report is composed of two
sections. The first section provides a brief overview of
historical trends in employer-provided coverage rates
by source of coverage as well as the reasons for non-
participation in health insurance from 1997 to 2010.
The second section focuses on data collected in 2010
and describes health insurance offer and take-up rates
by employee and employer characteristics. In addition,
1 DeNavas-Walt, Carmen, Bernadette D. Proctor, and Jessica C. Smith,
“Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States:
2011,” Current Population Reports, P60-243, U.S. Census Bureau,
Washington, DC, 2012.
the report describes the insurance status of workers
not participating in an employer’s plan and the reasons
for nonparticipation.
Data for this report come from several years of the
SIPP. Current estimates come from the sixth wave o