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Cosmic Markdown: EPA Says Life Is Worth Less
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"Nobody's ever lowered it," said W. Kip Viscusi of Vanderbilt University. EPA came closest: In 2003, it tried to count senior citizens' lives as worth less than those of other adults. After a loud outcry from seniors, the agency backed off.
Viscusi said most researchers believe the value should generally be going up, as Americans have become wealthier and more willing to spend money to avoid risks.
"I personally wasn't in favor of lowering the value of life, let's put it that way," he said.
Lowering the value of life. In some bureaucratic corners of Washington, it is the kind of phrase that nobody blinks at anymore.
But it still can sound odd to those accustomed to thinking of life's worth in other ways.
Daniel Zemel, rabbi at Temple Micah on Wisconsin Avenue NW, said Wednesday that the idea of a dollar value on life brings to mind the teaching that "you put one human life on the scale, and you put the rest of the world on the scale, the scale is balanced equally."
Zemel said h e could understand officials' logic for making decisions this way. But he said he would counsel anybody whose job involved "Statistical Lives" to think about what they really represent.
"Numbers on a piece of paper are, at the end of the day, somewhere out there," Zemel said, "real people whose lives are being impacted."
Staff researcher Meg Smith contributed to this report.
