An Analysis of Worker Drug Use and Workplace Policies and Programs

Figure 2.1Percentage and Estimated Number of Full-Time Workers, Age 18-49, Reporting Current Illicit Drug Use, by Demographic Characteristics, 1994 (Continued)

workforce in the United States: 78.5 percent was white, 11.5 percent was black, and 10.0% was Hispanic (these percentages do not include the "other" racial group).

Finally, full-time workers who reported the lowest personal income (less than $9,000 per year) and those who reported the highest personal income ($75,000 or more) also reported the highest rates of current illicit drug use. Although these two groups comprise only 12 percent of the full-time workforce age 18-49, they include 21 percent of those, age 18-49, reporting current illicit drug use. Over 12 percent of the members of these two groups reported current illicit drug use, but less than 10 percent of the members of the other income groups reported current illicit drug use. However, data on the distribution of the estimated number of users by income show a different pattern. The largest estimated numbers of users were from those groups of workers who reported personal annual incomes of $9,000 to $19,999 and $20,000 to $39,999. Over 65 percent of the estimated number of current illicit drug users came from these two groups. However, 68.4 percent of the total number of full-time workers age 18-49 also came from these two income groups.

Figure 2.2 provides comparable information on heavy alcohol use. As with current illicit drug use, a higher rate of heavy alcohol use was found among 18-25-year-old workers (13.6%) than among 26-34-year-old or 35-49-year-old workers (8.9% and 6.3%, respectively), but a majority of the estimated users were found among the older workers. Once again, this is due, in part, to the fact that a large majority of full-time workers, age 18-49, are in the 26-34-year-old and 35-49-year-old age groups.

Males were more likely than females, and whites were more likely than blacks, to report heavy alcohol use. The estimated number of users also shows that a large majority of heavy alcohol users were male workers and white workers.

The distribution of heavy alcohol use by personal income was slightly different than the distribution of current illicit drug use by personal income. Heavy alcohol use was more likely to be reported by workers in the two lower income brackets (less than $9,000 and $9,000-$19,999) than by workers in the higher income brackets ($20,000-$39,999, $40,000-$74,999, and $75,000 or more). However, most of the estimated number of heavy alcohol users—and a majority of full-time workers overall (68.4%)—came from those groups reporting personal incomes between $9,000-$19,999 and $20,000-$39,999 per annum.

This page was last updated on June 03, 2008.

SAMHSA, an agency in the Department of Health and Human Services, is the Federal Government's lead agency for improving the quality and availability of substance abuse prevention, addiction treatment, and mental health services in the United States.