Long Covid Disabled Millions of Workers. Then Came Trump 2.0.: Covid constitutes the largest mass disabling event in the United States since the Americans with Disabilities Act became law in 1990. It’s hard to measure the scale: Millions of Americans, maybe tens of millions, live with Long Covid. Many, from farmworkers to white-collar executives, are still in the workforce—some by choice, some paying an unsustainable price to support themselves or their families.
On the act’s anniversary in 2021, President Joe Biden announced in a White House Rose Garden speech that Long Covid would be treated as a disability under federal law. The Department of Health and Human Services in 2023 even established an office dedicated to Long Covid. In short, the ADA extends to Long Covid, which guarantees reasonable accommodations meant to allow people with the condition to work.
For those who can work at all—around 8 in 10, one study found—accommodations are often what makes it possible. The costs of unaccommodated Long Covid have piled up: Lost jobs and hours of work from the condition cost over $12 billion in 2022 alone, by one estimate, with attendant issues like housing insecurity.
Now, the Trump administration’s anti-worker and anti-disability turn—HHS dismantled its Long Covid office in 2025—has created a climate of fear and difficulty around Long Covid accommodations, exacerbated by corporate backlash and the spread of AI-powered “bossware.” Employers have been emboldened to fight their staff on accommodations, despite evidence that they lead to more retention and productivity overall. And academic studies, researchers, and employment attorneys I spoke with suggest that the costs and challenges of not accommodating Long Covid are rising for both employees and firms.
Almost two years into President Donald Trump’s return to office, as millions more people develop Long Covid through repeat infections, federal institutions that protected people with Long Covid under the Biden administration are now indifferent or openly hostile.… https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2026/10/long-covid-ada-accommodations-trump-administration-labor-hhs/ #LongCovid #DisabilityRights