workplace Archives - The Painful Truth

What Is a Human Life Worth?

President’s Council of Economic Advisers Calculate the Value of a Human Life

President Trump has declared the opioid crisis to be a national health emergency and appears to be developing the rationale for funding interventions to combat the program. The first step is to update the cost of the opioid crisis.

The President’s Council of Economic Advisers (CEA) recently published a report estimating the cost of the opioid crisis in 2015 to be $504 billion.

For that calculation, the CEA estimated the value of a life to be about $10.1 million.

Which Contributes More to the Opioid Crisis: Hopelessness or Overprescribing?

Opioids Affect the Workplace

The headline of a story on the social network site, LinkedIn, reads, “The opioid crisis is creating a fresh hell for America’s employers.” The story talks about how deeply prescription and illicit painkillers, including fentanyl, have affected the workplace.

At an Ohio-based pottery company, the owner no longer requires applicants to take a drug test. “Now,” according to the article, “he skips the tests and finds it more efficient to flat-out ask applicants: ‘What are you on?’ ” At a dishware manufacturing company in West Virginia, more than half of the applicants fail drug tests or refuse to submit to them. The opioid epidemic is “having a devastating effect on companies — large and small — and their ability to stay competitive.”