While the relationship between good health and economic prosperity goes beyond the pandemic – with illness a barrier to work for millions before Covid-19 – the pandemic provides a useful case study on the impact worse health can have on the labour market. • Previous IPPR research found that, had the UK-wide trend of economic inactivity improvement between 2015 and the end of 2019 continued, an estimated one million less people would be economically inactive. • Of those, 400,000 were excluded due to health-related factors. • Unresolved, we estimated this would drag down economic activity by an estimated £8 billion in 2022. • While this analysis applies across the whole UK, Scotland has a specific health-related inactivity problem: a greater proportion of Scottish inactivity is attributable to health problems than in rUK.