Depreciation in the Value of an American Life?

The EPA announced recently that the statistical value of an American life has depreciated to 6.9 million US dollars, which is a drop of $1 million from five years ago.

While this is all just statistics, there might be legal implications to the statistical value of an American life. Is $6.9million (or $7.9million five years ago) sufficient to purchase a life? Perhaps some lawyers may be tempted to cite this statistics to put a cap on legal damages.

If we use Euro to measure the statistical value of an American life:

• 5 years ago, (assuming exchange rate US$1 to 0.9Euro): 7.11 million Euro
• Today, (assuming exchange rate of US$1 to 0.63Euro): 4.35 million Euro

So the depreciation is almost 40% over the past 5 years, in terms of Euro!!!

There should be plenty of argument against putting a price tag on human life. Whatever the reason for the EPA to put a monetary measure on a statistical life, the number is probably controversial at best.