Why read this: This piece asks a question students often dismiss out of hand — can a life be priced? — and refuses the easy answer. The article walks through four overlapping tools (cost-benefit analysis, the human-capital method, the value of a statistical life, and quality-adjusted life years), exposes the flaw in each, and then defends the most uncomfortable of them as the least-bad option. For Mandarin L1 readers, it is a chance to see an English editorial argue against its opening gut reaction, weave US political history into a methodological thread, and arrive at a thesis delivered as quiet contrast rather than direct claim. The reward is a model of how nuanced policy journalism actually moves.
What to notice: Students should track the chain of methods rather than the surface debate. Each paragraph names a flaw in the previous approach — non-earners priced at zero, identified versus statistical lives, quality-of-life weighting — and the argument's force depends on holding the chain in mind. Tonal shifts also matter: the opening clifftop image and the closing 'warmer-sounding option' are deliberately ironic, and a literal reading inverts the thesis. Watch the em-dash parentheticals; they carry content, not decoration. Note finally how the article positions the EPA's current refusal as a near-mirror of a 1980s Democratic objection — the cross-partisan irony is part of what the writing rewards.
Skills practised: Sustained argument tracking across a multi-step methodological chain; reading historical-political context (Reagan, Weidenbaum, Schelling) as load-bearing rather than decorative; parsing em-dash parentheticals for substantive content; recognising tonal irony in formal journalism; and resisting the temptation to settle on the article's opening intuition before its closing reversal. Vocabulary work centres on register-shifting items — ghoulish, ledger, adage, squint, ploy, eschew, squeamish, efficacious — and on a small but load-bearing set of economic terms: cost-benefit analysis, deregulation, mortality, utility, signing bonus. The closing skill is the hardest: stating the thesis in one sentence.
How to put a price on a human life
As ghoulish as it sounds, it is far better than the alternative
Tap any green word in the article to see its meaning.
Pause on a clifftopclifftop: The top of a cliff — 崖顶, fill your lungs with cold Atlantic air, and the breath can feel restorativerestorative: Serving to restore — 恢复元气的, almost priceless. Cleaning the air the rest of us breathe is anything but free: factories retrofitretrofit: To fix an older version (or older versions) as part of the same process of fixing the newest version; to backport — 回溯修复 scrubbersscrubber: A person or appliance that cleans floors or similar by scrubbing — 擦洗工, dirty industries shrinkshrink: to become or make something smaller in size, amount, or value — 缩小；收缩；减少, households swap coal for cleaner fuels. On the other side of the ledgerledger: A book for keeping notes, especially one for keeping accounting records; a record book, a register — 分类账 sit fewer asthmaticasthmatic: Having the characteristics of asthma, as in an "asthmatic cough" — 哮喘的 children and fewer hospitalisationshospitalisation: Insurance that pays a patient's expenses — 住院保险 among the old and the already ill. cost-benefit analysis: an economic method that compares the money spent on something with the benefits gained, to decide if it is worth doing — 成本效益分析 demands a number on both sides; so how do you attach one to a death not yet suffered?
America's Environmental Protection Agency has decided it would rather not. Last month the EPA announced that, in assessing future rules, it will no longer assign a monetarymonetary: Of, pertaining to, or consisting of money — 货币的 value to clean-air health benefits, citing irreducibleirreducible: Not able to be reduced or lessened — 不可减少的 uncertainty in the figures. Scepticssceptic: Someone who habitually doubts beliefs and claims presented as accepted by others, requiring strong evidence before accepting any belief or claim — 怀疑者 read the move as a quiet attempt to water down: to weaken something (usually a rule or statement) by making it less strict — 削弱 / 打折扣 regulation by stealth: as the adageadage: An old saying which has obtained credit by long use — 格言 goes, what is not counted does not count, and refusing to grapple with a number is itself a way of discounting it to zero. Squintsquint: To look or glance sideways — 斜眼瞥 at the announcement and a ghoulishghoulish: Of or pertaining to ghouls — 食尸鬼般的 ironyirony: a state of affairs or an event that seems contradictory to what one expects, or the use of words to convey the opposite of their literal meaning — 讽刺；反语 emerges — the agency's reasoningreasoning: the process of thinking logically and drawing conclusions from facts or premises — 推理；论证；逻辑思维 now echoesecho: To repeat or reflect an idea, opinion, or sound, often in agreement or as a reverberation. — 回响；附和；重复 the very objectionsobjection: an expression or feeling of disapproval or opposition; a reason for disagreeing — 反对；异议 once raised against pricing exercises altogether.
The pricing exercise dates back to a 1981 executive order signed by Ronald Reagan, whose aim was to cut red tape: excessive bureaucratic rules and procedures that slow things down — 繁文缛节 / 官僚程序 whose costs could not be clearly justified by its benefits. Murray Weidenbaum, then chairing his Council of Economic Advisers, argued that money lavishedlavish: to give without limits — 慷慨 on rules saving only a handfulhandful: a small number or quantity of something — 少数；少量 of lives might fund better cardiaccardiac: Pertaining to the heart — 心脏的 wardsward: a separate room or area in a hospital for patients; a division of a city for elections — 病房；选区；被监护人. Democratic critics, sensing a ployploy: A tactic, strategy, or gimmick — 计策 to dress up deregulationderegulation: The process of removing constraints, especially government-imposed economic regulation — 放松管制 as analyticalanalytical: Of or pertaining to analysis; resolving into elements or constituent parts — 分析的 rigourrigour: Severity or strictness — 严谨, retortedretort: To say something sharp or witty in answer to a remark or accusation — 反驳 that no life could be reduced to a dollar figure. Four decades on, that protest reappears almost word for word in the mouth of an environmental regulatorregulator: A device that controls or limits something — 调节器.
The EPA of the 1980s reached instead for the value of a statistical life — a figure quite distinct from any individual's worth. An earlier attempt, the human-capital method: an older approach that priced a person's life as their remaining lifetime earnings, later rejected because it assigned zero value to non-earners — 人力资本法, drew on actuarialactuarial: Of or pertaining to actuaries — 精算师的 habits, multiplying expected wages by the working years still ahead. Wages, the reasoning ran, are the price at which someone sells their finitefinite: Limited by person or number — （语法）限定的；受人称或数限定的 hours; scale them across a lifetime and a market value emerges. The approach fell out of favour: stopped being popular or widely used — 失宠 / 不再受欢迎 once economists noticed its corollarycorollary: Something given beyond what is actually due; something added or superfluous — 附加之物: anyone without a wage — the elderly, the chronicallychronically: In a chronic manner, or to a chronic degree — 长期地 sick, parents who escheweschew: To avoid; to shun, to shy away from — 避免；回避 paid work to raise children — was implicitly priced at zero.
Thomas Schelling, who took the 2005 Nobel in economics, diagnosed the deeper problem: valuationvaluation: An estimation of something's worth — 估价 depends on whose life is in view. The named child in a fundraisingfundraising: The organised activity of collecting money for a particular purpose, especially a charity. — 筹款；募捐活动 appeal commands almost limitlesslimitless: Without limits in extent, size, or quantity; boundless — 无限的 generositygenerosity: A generous act — 慷慨之举 — let a six-year-old need an operation by Christmas, he wrote in 1968, and the post office will be swampedswamp: To drench or fill with water — 淹没 with coins. Ask the same donorsdonor: A person or organisation that gives something, especially money, to a cause or charity; a person who provides blood or organs. — 捐赠者；捐助者；供体 for a higher tax to lower mortalitymortality: The state or quality of being mortal — 必死性 among an unnamed slice of the population, however, and few will open their pocketbooks: to be willing to spend money (US idiom) — 掏腰包. Yet it is precisely that anonymousanonymous: Not identified by name; of unknown identity. — 匿名的；无名的；不知名的 statistical life — possibly their own — that regulatoryregulatory: Of or pertaining to regulation — 监管的 policy must learn to price.
Schelling's resolution was to read the price off choices people already make: drivers weigh a safer car against its added cost, soldiers weigh hazardoushazardous: Of or involving chance — 取决于机会的；碰运气的 postings against bigger paychecks. Observe what a population will pay to shaveshave: To reduce in size or weight — 削减 a known fraction off its risk of death, and the arithmetic does the rest. If 100,000 people each spend $100 to avoid a one-in-100,000 chance of dying, $10m has bought one expected life. The EPA's working figure — $7.4m in 2006 dollars, roughly $12m today — comes from such studies, including one tracing how US Army signing bonus: a one-off payment given to someone when they agree to take a job, often used to attract workers to difficult positions — 签约奖金 shifted with battlefieldbattlefield: The area where a battle is or was fought, or a field of conflict or contention. — 战场；战地 fatalityfatality: The state proceeding from destiny; invincible necessity, superior to, and independent of, free and rational control — 宿命 rates.
Britain has been less squeamishsqueamish: Easily bothered or upset; tending to be nauseated or nervous; oversensitive — 神经过敏的 still. Its National Health Service rationsration: To supply with a ration; to limit (someone) to a specific allowance of something — 限量供应 treatments using quality-adjusted life years, which borrow the same logiclogic: A method of human thought that involves thinking in a linear, step-by-step manner about how a problem can be solved. Logic is the basis of many principles including the scientific method — 逻辑 but reweight each remaining year by some measure of utilityutility: the state of being useful; a public service such as electricity, water, or gas — 实用性；效用；公共事业. A drug prolongingprolong: To extend in space or length — 延长(长度) life in chronicchronic: Persisting for a long time or constantly recurring, especially of an illness or problem — 慢性的；长期的；积习难改的 pain may earn fewer such years than a less efficaciousefficacious: Effective; possessing efficacy — 有效的；灵验的 alternative leaving the patient comfortable; all else equal, shieldingshield: To protect from the influence of — 屏蔽 statistical children outranksoutrank: To be of a higher rank than — 级别高于 shielding statistical pensionerspensioner: Someone who lives on a pension, especially the retirement or old age pension — 领养老金者.
None of these methods answers the unanswerableunanswerable: Not answerable; impossible to answer — 无法回答的. Each, however, insists that the value of a life is plainly not nothing: people prefer to remain alive, and they will pay, in money and inconvenience, to stay so. Regulatorsregulator: A device that controls or limits something — 调节器 need a benchmarkbenchmark: A standard or point of reference against which things may be compared or assessed — 基准；标杆；参考标准 — imperfect, contested, occasionally absurdabsurd: Extremely unreasonable or illogical; utterly ridiculous. — 荒谬的；荒唐的 — against which to weigh any decision's costs. Economists are routinelyroutinely: Done by rote or habit, as part of a routine, without attention or concern — 习惯性地 accused of an anti-social coldnesscoldness: Limited enthusiasm or affection; coolness — 冷漠 for asking how much a life is worth; the EPA, in declining to ask, has chosen the warmer-sounding option, and also the worse one.
Pause on a clifftopclifftop: The top of a cliff — 崖顶, fill your lungs with cold Atlantic air, and the breath can feel restorativerestorative: Serving to restore — 恢复元气的, almost priceless. Cleaning the air the rest of us breathe is anything but free: factories retrofitretrofit: To fix an older version (or older versions) as part of the same process of fixing the newest version; to backport — 回溯修复 scrubbersscrubber: A person or appliance that cleans floors or similar by scrubbing — 擦洗工, dirty industries shrinkshrink: to become or make something smaller in size, amount, or value — 缩小；收缩；减少, households swap coal for cleaner fuels. On the other side of the ledgerledger: A book for keeping notes, especially one for keeping accounting records; a record book, a register — 分类账 sit fewer asthmaticasthmatic: Having the characteristics of asthma, as in an "asthmatic cough" — 哮喘的 children and fewer hospitalisationshospitalisation: Insurance that pays a patient's expenses — 住院保险 among the old and the already ill. cost-benefit analysis: an economic method that compares the money spent on something with the benefits gained, to decide if it is worth doing — 成本效益分析 demands a number on both sides; so how do you attach one to a death not yet suffered?
America's Environmental Protection Agency has decided it would rather not. Last month the EPA announced that, in assessing future rules, it will no longer assign a monetarymonetary: Of, pertaining to, or consisting of money — 货币的 value to clean-air health benefits, citing irreducibleirreducible: Not able to be reduced or lessened — 不可减少的 uncertainty in the figures. Scepticssceptic: Someone who habitually doubts beliefs and claims presented as accepted by others, requiring strong evidence before accepting any belief or claim — 怀疑者 read the move as a quiet attempt to water down: to weaken something (usually a rule or statement) by making it less strict — 削弱 / 打折扣 regulation by stealth: as the adageadage: An old saying which has obtained credit by long use — 格言 goes, what is not counted does not count, and refusing to grapple with a number is itself a way of discounting it to zero. Squintsquint: To look or glance sideways — 斜眼瞥 at the announcement and a ghoulishghoulish: Of or pertaining to ghouls — 食尸鬼般的 ironyirony: a state of affairs or an event that seems contradictory to what one expects, or the use of words to convey the opposite of their literal meaning — 讽刺；反语 emerges — the agency's reasoningreasoning: the process of thinking logically and drawing conclusions from facts or premises — 推理；论证；逻辑思维 now echoesecho: To repeat or reflect an idea, opinion, or sound, often in agreement or as a reverberation. — 回响；附和；重复 the very objectionsobjection: an expression or feeling of disapproval or opposition; a reason for disagreeing — 反对；异议 once raised against pricing exercises altogether.
The pricing exercise dates back to a 1981 executive order signed by Ronald Reagan, whose aim was to cut red tape: excessive bureaucratic rules and procedures that slow things down — 繁文缛节 / 官僚程序 whose costs could not be clearly justified by its benefits. Murray Weidenbaum, then chairing his Council of Economic Advisers, argued that money lavishedlavish: to give without limits — 慷慨 on rules saving only a handfulhandful: a small number or quantity of something — 少数；少量 of lives might fund better cardiaccardiac: Pertaining to the heart — 心脏的 wardsward: a separate room or area in a hospital for patients; a division of a city for elections — 病房；选区；被监护人. Democratic critics, sensing a ployploy: A tactic, strategy, or gimmick — 计策 to dress up deregulationderegulation: The process of removing constraints, especially government-imposed economic regulation — 放松管制 as analyticalanalytical: Of or pertaining to analysis; resolving into elements or constituent parts — 分析的 rigourrigour: Severity or strictness — 严谨, retortedretort: To say something sharp or witty in answer to a remark or accusation — 反驳 that no life could be reduced to a dollar figure. Four decades on, that protest reappears almost word for word in the mouth of an environmental regulatorregulator: A device that controls or limits something — 调节器.
The EPA of the 1980s reached instead for the value of a statistical life — a figure quite distinct from any individual's worth. An earlier attempt, the human-capital method: an older approach that priced a person's life as their remaining lifetime earnings, later rejected because it assigned zero value to non-earners — 人力资本法, drew on actuarialactuarial: Of or pertaining to actuaries — 精算师的 habits, multiplying expected wages by the working years still ahead. Wages, the reasoning ran, are the price at which someone sells their finitefinite: Limited by person or number — （语法）限定的；受人称或数限定的 hours; scale them across a lifetime and a market value emerges. The approach fell out of favour: stopped being popular or widely used — 失宠 / 不再受欢迎 once economists noticed its corollarycorollary: Something given beyond what is actually due; something added or superfluous — 附加之物: anyone without a wage — the elderly, the chronicallychronically: In a chronic manner, or to a chronic degree — 长期地 sick, parents who escheweschew: To avoid; to shun, to shy away from — 避免；回避 paid work to raise children — was implicitly priced at zero.
Thomas Schelling, who took the 2005 Nobel in economics, diagnosed the deeper problem: valuationvaluation: An estimation of something's worth — 估价 depends on whose life is in view. The named child in a fundraisingfundraising: The organised activity of collecting money for a particular purpose, especially a charity. — 筹款；募捐活动 appeal commands almost limitlesslimitless: Without limits in extent, size, or quantity; boundless — 无限的 generositygenerosity: A generous act — 慷慨之举 — let a six-year-old need an operation by Christmas, he wrote in 1968, and the post office will be swampedswamp: To drench or fill with water — 淹没 with coins. Ask the same donorsdonor: A person or organisation that gives something, especially money, to a cause or charity; a person who provides blood or organs. — 捐赠者；捐助者；供体 for a higher tax to lower mortalitymortality: The state or quality of being mortal — 必死性 among an unnamed slice of the population, however, and few will open their pocketbooks: to be willing to spend money (US idiom) — 掏腰包. Yet it is precisely that anonymousanonymous: Not identified by name; of unknown identity. — 匿名的；无名的；不知名的 statistical life — possibly their own — that regulatoryregulatory: Of or pertaining to regulation — 监管的 policy must learn to price.
Schelling's resolution was to read the price off choices people already make: drivers weigh a safer car against its added cost, soldiers weigh hazardoushazardous: Of or involving chance — 取决于机会的；碰运气的 postings against bigger paychecks. Observe what a population will pay to shaveshave: To reduce in size or weight — 削减 a known fraction off its risk of death, and the arithmetic does the rest. If 100,000 people each spend $100 to avoid a one-in-100,000 chance of dying, $10m has bought one expected life. The EPA's working figure — $7.4m in 2006 dollars, roughly $12m today — comes from such studies, including one tracing how US Army signing bonus: a one-off payment given to someone when they agree to take a job, often used to attract workers to difficult positions — 签约奖金 shifted with battlefieldbattlefield: The area where a battle is or was fought, or a field of conflict or contention. — 战场；战地 fatalityfatality: The state proceeding from destiny; invincible necessity, superior to, and independent of, free and rational control — 宿命 rates.
Britain has been less squeamishsqueamish: Easily bothered or upset; tending to be nauseated or nervous; oversensitive — 神经过敏的 still. Its National Health Service rationsration: To supply with a ration; to limit (someone) to a specific allowance of something — 限量供应 treatments using quality-adjusted life years, which borrow the same logiclogic: A method of human thought that involves thinking in a linear, step-by-step manner about how a problem can be solved. Logic is the basis of many principles including the scientific method — 逻辑 but reweight each remaining year by some measure of utilityutility: the state of being useful; a public service such as electricity, water, or gas — 实用性；效用；公共事业. A drug prolongingprolong: To extend in space or length — 延长(长度) life in chronicchronic: Persisting for a long time or constantly recurring, especially of an illness or problem — 慢性的；长期的；积习难改的 pain may earn fewer such years than a less efficaciousefficacious: Effective; possessing efficacy — 有效的；灵验的 alternative leaving the patient comfortable; all else equal, shieldingshield: To protect from the influence of — 屏蔽 statistical children outranksoutrank: To be of a higher rank than — 级别高于 shielding statistical pensionerspensioner: Someone who lives on a pension, especially the retirement or old age pension — 领养老金者.
None of these methods answers the unanswerableunanswerable: Not answerable; impossible to answer — 无法回答的. Each, however, insists that the value of a life is plainly not nothing: people prefer to remain alive, and they will pay, in money and inconvenience, to stay so. Regulatorsregulator: A device that controls or limits something — 调节器 need a benchmarkbenchmark: A standard or point of reference against which things may be compared or assessed — 基准；标杆；参考标准 — imperfect, contested, occasionally absurdabsurd: Extremely unreasonable or illogical; utterly ridiculous. — 荒谬的；荒唐的 — against which to weigh any decision's costs. Economists are routinelyroutinely: Done by rote or habit, as part of a routine, without attention or concern — 习惯性地 accused of an anti-social coldnesscoldness: Limited enthusiasm or affection; coolness — 冷漠 for asking how much a life is worth; the EPA, in declining to ask, has chosen the warmer-sounding option, and also the worse one.
Questions
Check your understanding
- 01
Why does the article suggest the EPA's recent decision is ironic?
- 02
What is the central distinction Schelling draws between an 'identified life' and a 'statistical life'?
- 03
What does the closing line — that the EPA has chosen 'the warmer-sounding option' but also 'the worse one' — imply about the article's overall argument?
- 04
Argue whether the EPA is right to abandon a monetary figure for the health benefits of clean air, drawing on at least two specific points the article makes.
Suggested length: ~100 words
- 05
Assess the claim that the value of a statistical life, derived from wages or signing bonuses, gives regulators a defensible figure for human life.
Suggested length: ~100 words
Questions
Check your understanding
- 01
Why does the article suggest the EPA's recent decision is ironic?
- 02
What is the central distinction Schelling draws between an 'identified life' and a 'statistical life'?
- 03
What does the closing line — that the EPA has chosen 'the warmer-sounding option' but also 'the worse one' — imply about the article's overall argument?
- 04
Argue whether the EPA is right to abandon a monetary figure for the health benefits of clean air, drawing on at least two specific points the article makes.
Suggested length: ~100 words
- 05
Assess the claim that the value of a statistical life, derived from wages or signing bonuses, gives regulators a defensible figure for human life.
Suggested length: ~100 words