When the U.S. Department of Transportation decides whether a safety rule is worth its cost, it uses a figure called the value of a statistical life. For analyses with a 2025 base year, the figure is $14.2 million.
The department explains how it works. If a person “is willing to pay $1,000 to reduce the annual risk of death by one in 10,000,” that person “is said to have a VSL of $10 million.” It adds: “What is involved is not the valuation of life as such, but the valuation of reductions in risks.”