What’s Life Worth? The Dollar Cost of 200,000 Dead Americans

Life is precious, but not priceless, economists say. So what’s the value of each life lost to Covid-19?

The economic costs of the Covid-19 pandemic in the United States are staggering. Tens of millions of lost jobs, billions of dollars in lost business revenue and state tax revenue, trillions spent on stimulus and relief programs. And in a few short days, 200,000 deaths.

But you can’t put a price tag on human life, right? Life is, well, priceless.

Actually, the government has for several decades put price tags on our lives. The Value of a Statistical Life (VSL) was set at $9.6 million in 2016 by the U.S. Department of Transportation, for example.

Yes, it’s a crude, some might say offensive way to think about a life, but it’s a fact of governing that helps inform how judges and juries award damages, how businesses are regulated, and how your tax dollars are spent on things like public health and safety. In short, the federal government routinely uses the dollar value of human life to make decisions about rules and regulations that have life-and-death consequences and also financial impacts on businesses and consumers.