How Much Is Your Life Worth? A Compelling Reflection On Why You need A Home-Based Business

How many times have you heard from employers searching for people to work for them, “Are you paid less than you are worth? If you are qualified, we have the perfect job for you that DOES pay what you are worth.”

Most people feel underpaid to some extent, and many will follow up an ad like that. But what are we really talking about, “What your life is worth?” Many things go into such an analysis. Juries have heard endless facts and figures when considering a wrongful death claim. One of the first things is how much money the deceased person might make if their life had not been untimely terminated.

The starting point is the average annual earnings in the area where the claim occurred. Here is some data for the US, Canada, UK, and Australia. Each country has many different areas but we will only consider a basic average for the entire country. What kind of work a person does will have a significant effect, but we’ll leave that to the individual jury; our calculations will use the basic averages. The other variable is working years; these we’ll assume to be from age 25 to age 70 or 45 working years.

This table shows lifetime earnings for several countries:

To simplify our analysis here are the lifetime earnings converted to U.S. dollars at the exchange rates in effect September 9, 2005:

• USA = $1,780,200 USD
  
• Australia = $1,826,333 USD
  
• Canada = $1,251,448 USD
  
• UK = $2,173,027 USD

How do these calculations match actual jury awards? Here are a few of these with punitive damages removed (it’s difficult to entirely do this because we can’t get inside the minds of jurors):

Jury Verdict Research states median medical malpractice jury awards in 2002 were over $1,010,000 USD.

Yahoo! Finance reports a Texas jury awarded $7,400,000 USD in a wrongful death case.

A Perfect Cause reports an Oklahoma jury awarded $1,000,000 USD in a wrongful death suit.

The Dallas Business Journal reports a $16,000,000 (plus a punitive amount) award in a wrongful death case.

The RAND Corporation says civilians killed or seriously injured in the World Trade event of 9/11 were paid an average $3,100,000 mostly from the Victim Compensation Fund.

These data support the idea that the workplace and many juries value a person’s life in terms of two to three million USD.

To further place a value let’s relate earnings to an hourly basis. This ILO (International Labour Organization) chart shows annual hours worked per employee for the US, Canada, Australia, and UK at average about 1,800 hours. The US employees worked more and UK employees worked a little less. Based on these hours and average annual earnings hourly earnings are these (all stated in USD):

• USA $39,560 USD/1,800 hrs. = $21.97 per hour
  
• Australia $40,586 USD/1,800 hrs. = $22.55 per hour
  
• Canada $27,810 USD/1,800 hrs. = $15.45 per hour
  
• UK $48,289 USD/1,800 hrs. = $26.83 per hour

There are some of you who will say these figures are too high or too low; whatever they are, this is information used by various governmental departments in each country. Decisions affecting you are made based upon these facts. So the question remains: How much is your life worth?

This is the same kind of question as “How much money is enough?” My answer for that is there will never be enough. I suspect Bill Gates would agree, because he’s still building Microsoft as fast as he can. That’s because he has charities and other projects requiring massive amounts of money.

We all have things other than money that interest us. The idea that “money isn’t everything” is true. There are so many wealthy people around us who are unhappy. But it’s also true that money generally improves most things. The problem with money is the love of money for its own sake. That’s greed. Since most of us aren’t truly greedy, that means most of us never have enough money to do the things we would like for our families, friends, or those less fortunate. It follows that we can’t place a value on our lives and therefore nobody is ever paid what they are worth and they never will be. If we don’t know what our life is worth, how in the world can we expect an employer to know?

One result of not knowing our worth is continuously trying to impress our superiors in hopes of gaining a more lucrative promotion or trying to be paid for extra work to improve our financial situation. Guardian Unlimited has an article quoting a recent study by Professor Cary Cooper of Lancaster University Management School (UK) that says over 45 hours worked in a week over a period of time will damage a person’s physical and mental health. A similar US study says overtime and extended work schedules are associated with increased risk of cardiovascular disease, depression, chronic infections, diabetes, and other health problems. Now we see the value of our life has a large component related to our health!

These studies advocate “working smarter,” not longer. This change would require introduction of new methods and flexible workplaces most employers will be slow to implement. Meanwhile many of us are killing ourselves. We must develop our own ways to reduce hours we work. All our efforts will be related in some way to our real or perceived economic wellbeing, i.e., MONEY!

Another element to consider when valuing our own lives is how much of our effort is actually returned to us in the form of earnings. An idea of this is stated in a recent article on the Electronics Supply & Manufacturing Website. In this manufacturing example 5% of the cost of goods is direct labor. In the example used the final selling price was around $1,000 USD, cost of goods was $800 USD, and direct labor was about $40 USD. From these data you see that labor (YOU) get about 4% of the selling price and your employer might get 20%. Management will say they provide a place to work and the means to sell the product. This is all true. But you are still not being paid what you are worth; the company is paying you what they want and are willing to pay you. THIS IS IN NO WAY WHAT YOU ARE WORTH!

Self-employed entrepreneurs, including those who are home based are also subject to working long hours. Professionals who are self-employed have the same problem. The difference is these people own their business, they are the boss, and they have control over their time. They also receive all profits from whatever they do. Self-employment in whatever form is a closer approximation to being paid what you are worth than working for another.

Self-employment is a major way to control the hours we work. There are many opportunities where the internet can be used to establish a continuous e-commerce presence on the Web. This kind of business can be conducted as a sideline under direct control of the entrepreneur. Such a business can reduce the compulsion to work excessively for an employer. Many people (maybe most people) will need to work for someone else to exist. A part time income on the side could reduce dependence on others.

If one has some influence over when they work their overall quality of life will be improved. In addition to extra money there may be time for these other elements in the quality of life:

• Ability to pursue desires like travel, education, creative instincts
  
• Enjoy nature’s wonders
  
• Time to help others
  
• Time and money to make a difference and change things around you

Some will disagree with all this. In addition to those who say you must work for others all your life there are religious and cultural restrictions on the value of life. Someone very close to me lived their entire life just to die and meet their creator. It is quite common for people today to commit suicide while killing perceived religious opponents. These acts apparently are justified in the belief that it is good to go into eternal life without spending too much time in this terrible world. There are many religious orders with a vow of poverty who advocate no material efforts of any kind. The problem with this is someone somewhere must support them with material goods in order for them to continue their poverty vows.

Because of all these diverse concepts of life value it’s impossible to find a satisfactory answer to our question “What is your life worth?” Let’s leave this analysis with a headline from Al “Big Al” Schreiter - "Three reasons to fire your boss and start your own business":

1. Pay yourself ALL of what you make.
   
2. Control when and where you work.
   
3. Do something you are passionate about, that you really enjoy.

Become a home based based business owner HERE