Gun Violence — Costly in More Than One WayWe all know about the thousands of deaths each year caused by guns. According to the Harvard Medical School and its researchers, the U.S. has more gun deaths and the violence around them than other developed nations.
That violence is also very hard on the economy.
Gun violence costs the nation $557 billion each year. That’s 2.6% of the gross domestic product. Or so says the study done by the medical school and published by the journal, JAMA.
Study head Zirui Song said the majority of the financial loss is quality-of-life costs for those injured by firearms and its impact on families.
“Employers and their health insurers sustain a substantial financial burden from firearm injuries and have a financial incentive to prevent them,” Song said. “However, US businesses have by and large not engaged publicly on the subject of firearms, despite spending large sums on other efforts to promote employee health.”
For example, the pandemic surrounded 2020 saw record numbers of gun purchases and a big increase in gun deaths. That year — say researchers from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health — 45,222 people died from gun-related injuries.
Wounds from guns were the leading cause of deaths in kids and teenagers under age 19.
The Harvard study found that companies and employees in the U.S. also had problems with the rising rate of gun violence. Injuries from gun related violence in companies with employer-purchased health insurance rose from 2.6 per 100,000 employees to 11.7 per 100,000.
That violence also impacts the economy. Losses to companies hit $535 million a year. Workers surviving a gun injury also struggle. Firearm injuries cost about $30,000 for the person injured for the first year and it goes up from there.
Source link: Bloomberg — https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-09-27/gun-violence-costs-the-us-economy-557-billion-a-year-hits-company-revenues
Source link: Insurance Journal — https://bit.ly/3rv9syE |
