Unemployment Insurance and Drug Overdose Deaths during the Great Recession

This paper provides the first estimates of the effect of unemployment insurance (UI) on drug overdose deaths. Exploiting both time-series and cross-sectional variation in UI generosity generated by federal and state UI laws, we estimate that a one standard deviation increase in UI generosity during the Great Recession ($10,200) increases the drug overdose death rate per 100,000 by an average of 0.22 (1.8%). The increase in drug overdose deaths occurs with a lag and is concentrated in rural areas. We also find evidence that higher UI generosity is associated with increased use of marijuana and prescription opioids, which might explain the mortality results. Our findings highlight the importance of accounting for the unintended health consequences when designing UI expansion policies during economic downturns