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Where the jobs are, health care is not

A new study finds that the industries adding new jobs the fastest in the state are the ones least likely to provide health insurance.

By KRIS HUNDLEY
Published June 12, 2006

Florida leads the nation in job creation, but a new study by Florida International University has identified a major flaw with many of those jobs: They don’t include health benefits.

According to FIU’s Research Institute on Social and Economic Policy, the industries that are adding jobs the fastest in Florida are the ones least likely to provide health insurance for workers.

The report, to be issued today, found that the industries with the highest number of uninsured are construction, leisure and hospitality, professional and business services, and wholesale and retail trade. According to state data, the same four categories have also been the biggest job generators over the past year. The construction industry alone added 48,600 jobs over the past year, second only to the professional and business services sector, which added 59,100 new jobs.

“I was surprised that construction was the worst in terms of health care coverage,’’ said Bruce Nissen, co-author of the report and director of the research institute known as RISEP. “I knew it would be fairly bad in retail and various kinds of service industries. But I didn’t realize how bad off the construction industry was.’’

The study found that nearly 42 percent of Florida’s construction workers, or more than 300,000 people, have no health insurance, compared with an uninsured rate of 35 percent in the leisure and hospitality business, 27 percent in professional and business services and 23 percent in wholesale and retail trade.

While Nissen said the absence of unions could be one reason Florida construction workers lack health benefits, Joseph Narkiewicz, executive vice president of the Tampa Bay Builders Association, said other factors are to blame.

“The building industry here is comprised of a tremendous number of small operations,’’ he said. “They’re independent contractors or self-employed, and many of them don’t have a health care program.’’

Other key findings of the FIU report, which will be available on the Institute’s Web site (www.risep-fiu.org):

• Statewide, 18.5 percent of Florida’s population is uninsured, totaling more than 3-million people.
• Populations with highest rates of  the uninsured include young adults (34.7 percent of 16- to 24-year olds), Hispanics (31.3 percent) and low-wage workers (38.7 percent of those earning less than $20,000 a year).
• Though employees of small businesses often lack health insurance (37.4 percent of those in firms with fewer than 10 workers), working for a big company is no guarantee of coverage.

The study found that 400,000 Floridians who work in firms with more than 1,000 employees lack health benefits.

The FIU report said that in 2005, data from the Florida Department of Children and Families showed that 4,909 employees of Wal-Mart and their dependents were enrolled in Medicaid, at a cost of at least $16-million to the state.

Legislation intended to force big employers like Wal-Mart to contribute a percentage of payroll costs toward employees’ health care was introduced in both the Florida House and Senate last session. Both bills died in committee.

Kris Hundley can be reached at hundley@sptimes.com or (727) 892-2996.

[Last modified June 12, 2006, 23:45:08]