Americans hang on to jobs they don't favor for multiple reasons, including salary, geographical convenience and upward mobility. Increasingly, with inflation rising, career professionals are sticking to jobs they don't like primarily for the health care benefits.

Workplace experts call that syndrome 'job lock', and it's growing in the U.S. workplace.

According to a study by the West Health-Gallup Center on Healthcare in America, nearly one in four (24%) of American workers say they're "afraid" of losing their health insurance, and this fear is keeping them in their jobs. That's an 8% rise from 221, the study noted.

Given the skyrocketing costs of health insurance, as employer-sponsored family health insurance premiums have increased by about 26% over the past five years, that fear is justifiable.

Jeff Bezos backs a platform that lets anyone invest in rental homes for as little as $100 — 6 ways to build wealth like a landlord without actually being one

Dave Ramsey warns nearly 50% of Americans are making 1 big Social Security mistake — here's what it is and 3 simple steps to fix it ASAP

Millionaires under 43 hold only 25% of their wealth in stocks. Here's where their money is actually going

Gallup reported that 44% of working Americans who own healthcare debt say they remain in an unwanted job for insurance, which doubles the rate of workers without medical debt (21%). Unsurprisingly, job lock rates top out at 27% among workers in households earning $48,000 to less than $90,000 a year and are typically lower among those earning higher incomes.

"The most powerful type of golden handcuffs in the U.S. labor market is health insurance," Cassidy Blair, a physician and founder of Blair Wellness Group, told Moneywise. "Salary can be negotiated, and so can retirement, but a waiting period on a pre-existing condition can't."

Job lock alone runs about $137,000 per 100 employees per year in added productivity drag, on top of the costs from attrition, disengagement and reputational damage, Ethan McCarty, Integral's founder and CEO, told Moneywise. The data comes from the Integral Index, an annual workforce study conducted with The Harris Poll.

"Across a 1,000-person company, that's over a million dollars a year from job lock specifically, inside a broader disengagement cost that tops $5 million," McCarty said. "Most employers aren't measuring this because they're measuring retention, not the reason behind it."

There's a good reason employees value their health insurance plans

U.S. employer healthcare plans are often viewed as the best and most complete by employees, compared to other health care plans, as they're primarily built with lower deductibles, pharmacy benefits and other supplementals like accident coverage, critical illness and hospital indemnity.

"I recently had a client in Florida who was paying over $3,600 per month for a family of five," Thyrza Oliveira, a licensed health insurance agent in 31 states and founder of FindCoverage.net, told Moneywise.

The client was thinking about leaving her job and, while finally leaving the job because of the health insurance benefits alone, the process took a long time. "She was comfortable with her insurance; all her doctors and meds were covered," Oliveira said. "We talked, and I priced private plans for her; we walked through the trade-offs, and ended up saving her around 30% a month."

Oliveira said that experience and others convinced her that employees are scared of the individual market, as Affordable Care Act plan deductibles and out-of-pocket costs are getting higher and higher, and networks are getting narrower. "We're also seeing big companies leaving the marketplace, rules for subsidies changing, medical costs rising, and everyone has heard stories about denied claims," Oliveira noted.

By and large, employees are used to their employer's healthcare coverage, know how it works, and know it's effective. "Consequently, they'd rather stay in a toxic job and accept lower pay forever in exchange for the feeling of safety," Oliveira added.

Yet there are big caveats to employer-sponsored healthcare plans, especially when employees are adding family members to the plan. "The employer coverage is often a good deal for the employee alone," Oliveira said. "The moment you add a family, it can get expensive

For example, FindCoverage.net had a client in Texas with a family of four, whose employer plan runs over $584 a week for health only, and no dental or vision. His wife's employer plan wasn't much different, but adding him to her plan would cost an extra $1000 a month for one person.

"We see a lot of people are trapped in a job by misinformation," Oliveira noted. "They've never actually priced their options."

Read More: Vanguard reveals what's coming for U.S. stocks — and it could be bad news for this group of investors

Cheaper insurance won't fix a health insurance-related job lock problem, and that alone isn't a company's fault, as businesses have little impact on healthcare coverage prices.

Yet companies can make life easier for staffers by offering better employment enticements, like heftier salaries, more flexible working arrangements, and a health and wellness-oriented workplace culture.

"If someone's only staying because they're scared of what happens if they leave, you haven't solved a retention problem; you've created a liability sitting inside of your workforce," McCarty said. "The job is to build conditions people want to stay for. That's a harder problem than a benefits package, but it's the one that pays off."

If you're thinking of leaving a job but are worried about having good health care coverage, start comparing COBRA expenses for any upcoming medical treatments, and not just the premiums. "Also, schedule any exit around treatment milestones rather than calendar quarters and negotiate short-term consulting work to maintain benefits and to try out a new position," Blair advises.

Here are the 7 top habits of 'quietly wealthy' Americans. How many do you follow?

The tax breaks in Trump's 'big beautiful bill' expire after 2028 — and experts say most people won't act in time. What to do before the window closes

Here's the average income of Americans by age in 2026. Are you keeping up or falling behind?

When he dies, Warren Buffett said 90% of his wife's inheritance will go into a single investment. Here's why (and how you can do it too)

Join 250,000+ readers and get Moneywise's best stories and exclusive interviews first — clear insights curated and delivered weekly. Subscribe now.

Perhaps the biggest mistake is to assume a new job's health care coverage is better than your current one. "Chasing stronger health care plans is what makes people get stuck in a position where they won't leave the job because of the benefits," Oliveira said.

This article originally appeared on Moneywise.com under the title: 'Job lock' hits 24% of U.S. workers — staying in jobs they hate because losing health insurance terrifies them

This article provides information only and should not be construed as advice. It is provided without warranty of any kind.