The Price Tag

How much is death worth?

by Duane Swierczynski

This past Sunday, The New York Times ran a short piece about a difficult topic: putting a price tag on the dead.

Specifically, determining compensation for the families of those who perished in the 9/11 attacks, just six years ago this past Tuesday.

Who comes up with these numbers? Forensic economists. "It's a scary, ghoulish kind of arithmetic," one such economist, Don Frankenfeld, told the Times.

Here's how it breaks down:

The average award was $2 million for each of the 2,280 victims in the towers, but that's kind of a misleading number. The payouts were broken down by income level — the families of those who made a bigger paycheck, on average, received more compensation.

If you made less than $25,000 a year, your family received closer to $1 million. If you made mid-six-figures, you families received $3 million or $4 million.

The type of job matters, too. Most food workers' families received a little more than $1 million. Victims who worked in finance: about $2.4 million. Firefighters who died trying to save them all: $1.6 million.

There are class concerns, even in death.

Don't get me wrong: Unsettling as it is, the payout system makes logical sense. The fund managers have to come up with a number that will help families fill the gaping financial hole in their lives. This is not a fiscal assessment of a person's body and soul; it's what they did. Or what have done, had they lived.

That's not what bugs me.

What bugs me is how we assess a person's worth while they're still alive.

In this week's cover story (p. 20), Doron Taussig details the efforts of the local chapter of SEIU — the service workers' labor union — to cajole building owners into giving their janitors and security guards a decent wage.

In the story you'll meet a woman named Blanca Rivera who's forced to live in a neighborhood she fears. Sure, she could stay in a slightly nicer area, but then she'd be unable to afford such extravagances as lunch and dinner. And then you'll read about SEIU's sometimes-controversial methods of securing a livable wage for her — a way she can live in a decent neighborhood and eat three meals a day. You know, something you'd assume that a person who works a full-time job would be able to afford.

But the bombshell of the story comes later on: Most building owners can readily afford the salary bump for their lowest-paid employees.

It's not a factor of whether they should or not; they don't pay enough because, well, no one's there to tell them otherwise, unless someone like SEIU steps in.

It's as if owners look at someone emptying trash cans or guarding their lobby and think, "Hmmm, what can I get away with?"

They look at someone and put a price tag on his or her life. It's a scary and ghoulish kind of arithmetic.

Maybe we need those forensic economists to team up with the unions and building owners and come up with some kind of forensic analysis for jobs like janitors, food service workers and security guards.

The stuff nobody wants to do.

Right there — that should be seen as cause for more compensation, shouldn't it? Imagine a pay scale like:

Stick your hand near hot grease: $1.50 more per hour.

Stand guard at a desk for eight mind-numbing hours straight: $2 more per hour.

Clean vomit: $3.50 more per hour.

Or maybe that's going a little too far. After all — despite the rigorous system set up by forensic accountants — the 9/11 fund's special master Kenneth R. Feinberg also had the power to tweak payouts, sometimes taking from the rich to give to the poor, depending on the circumstances.

Maybe it would be enough to simply ask building owners to take a look at their employees and ask themselves, Gee, am I doing enough to make sure they're making enough for food and shelter? After all, they're the ones making sure this building is safe and clean.

Maybe. But until then, there's SEIU, and I think their mission is a noble one.

(duane@citypaper.net)