Why I peg a human life at VSL — and mean it, plus a million
From Make America Dream Again — the ethos under the house. One human's voice. No lying.
There's a number they don't want you to know you're worth: the Value of a Statistical Life, the VSL. Not poetry — the cold figure the government itself uses. When the EPA weighs a clean-air rule, when the DOT weighs a guardrail, they price one human life at north of $10 million (call it ten to thirteen). That's their math. On the books.
So get this straight: your own government says you're worth ten million when it's deciding whether to stop a factory poisoning you — but the second you need help, a copay, a $300 light bill, a check that won't clear, suddenly you're worth a stack of forms and a "please hold"? They'll spend ten million on a statistical stranger and won't spend three hundred to keep Mike off the ledge. That's not a budget problem. It's a lie about what you're worth.
So I throw their number back on the table — not as a literal check you can cut (it can't be; VSL is a regulatory yardstick, not a bank balance you divide up) but as a mirror. You already swore, in your own laws, that a faceless statistical life is worth millions when there's a polluter to leash. Then you balk at three hundred dollars for a real neighbor. That gap isn't a budgeting problem — it's a lie about who counts. Build the pool, fund the lane, kill the hoop: keeping a human alive and well is a rounding error next to the worth you already put on paper. Put the money where your math already is.
And then I add a million. Plus a million, on purpose — because the VSL is the floor, the part you can count. The million on top is the part you can't: the dad's joke on the voicemail, the friend who didn't make it, the kid laughing in the deep end, the semicolon where the sentence could've ended and didn't. Only humans score — the statistical number is just the down payment. The real value runs off the end of the page.
If the sentence ever feels like it wants to end — in the US, call or text 988 (Suicide & Crisis Lifeline), any hour; or find help anywhere at findahelpline.com. You are not alone, and the story isn’t over.