Long COVID Workers Face Barriers to Workplace Accommodations

Woman with short brown hair sits in front of a computer, in an office. She's wearing an N95 mask. — Photo by Engin Akyurt on Unsplash

The COVID pandemic is associated with the largest number of registered disabilities for Americans since the Americans with Disabilities Act was passed in 1990, leaving millions to suffer from long COVID. Almost seven years have gone by and, in addition to bearing the stress of the illness, many also contend with the fear of asking their employers for necessary accommodations.

The Trump administration’s anti-worker and anti-disability policies, including the shuttering of the nation’s long COVID office by the Department of Health and Human Services in 2025, have left workers anxious and uncertain about requesting the workplace accommodations they’re legally owed through the ADA, Mother Jones reports. Corporate backlash and the spread of AI-powered “bossware” monitoring actions from keystrokes to bathroom breaks have only made the situation worse.

“Employers feel very comfortable undermining all these benefits,” said Barbara Comerford, a New Jersey-based lawyer who lives with myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome. “I’ll get calls from lawyers who represent employers,” Comerford continued, “and they’re trying to get around some of the provisions that protect people…what they do is they look for a hardship basis to excuse having to accommodate people.” Filing disability insurance claims has become equally tough. The insurance industry “knows they’ve got a friend in the White House,” she said.

In 2021, President Biden announced that long COVID would be treated as a disability under federal law — guaranteeing reasonable accommodations at work for those affected. About 8 in 10 people with the condition can work with appropriate adjustments, one study found.

Even before Trump retook office, a 2024 report found that nearly half of disabled workers and job seekers who didn’t disclose their need for accommodations were afraid to ask for them. And in Trump’s term, employers have grown bolder about rejecting accommodations despite research showing that they improve retention and productivity. Going without accommodations is also costly: A University of Florida study published earlier this year estimated that lost jobs and work hours from long COVID totaled more than $12 billion in 2022 alone.

Moreover, having long COVID makes it harder to fight these workplace injustices. Symptoms and severity can vary widely and the illness is still poorly understood, which invites skepticism at work, said Doron Dorfman, a Seton Hall University law professor. The illness has also been politicized within an administration that downplays the virus, said California-based employment and disability attorney Hillary Benham-Baker. Altogether, very few long COVID cases make it to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, a Bloomberg Law analysis found, even as disability complaints expanded from under 23,000 in fiscal year 2021 to more than 36,000 in fiscal year 2025.

What comes next is uncertain. Comerford wants a more robust ADA that makes it harder to deny accommodations when employees complete their required work. But former Rep. Tony Coelho, the law’s primary author, has warned that debating it in today’s political climate could make circumstances worse. For now, Benham-Baker says, clearer guidance for employers could make a real difference, even if it only comes from the states.