“Almost 1 million people were out of the workforce due to opioid addiction in 2015, according to a new study.
The study from the American Action Forum, a right-leaning think tank, highlights the economic costs of the opioid epidemic, in addition to the direct toll of deaths and addiction.
The report found that 919,400 people of prime working age were not in the labor force in 2015 because of opioid addiction.
Furthermore, that decline in work resulted in slowing the country’s economic growth rate by 0.2 percentage points per year, the study finds. That translates to $702.1 billion in lost output from 1999 to 2015.”
Read more at: http://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/380508-nearly-1-million-people-out-of-workforce-due-to-opioids-study
Source: TheHill.com – March 27, 2018
