Mortality Among White-Collar Workers Jumped 24 Percent Between 2020 and 2021, Life Insurance Data Show

Less than 64 percent of excess deaths attributed to COVID-19

First responders load a patient into an ambulance from a nursing home where multiple people have contracted COVID-19 in Chelsea, Mass., on April 17, 2020. Scott Eisen/Getty Images

The increase in deaths not attributed to COVID-19 in the working-age population during the summer and into the fall of last year affected white-collar workers more than blue- and grey-collar employees, according to life insurance data.

In the white-collar sector, mortality jumped 24 percent in the period covered by the data (April 2020–September 2021); less than 64 percent of those were attributed to COVID-19. Among blue-collar workers, mortality rose 19 percent, of which over 80 percent was attributed to COVID-19.