Ben advises doing this through guesstimate, account for variation that could occur, take mean score from Guesstimate (that also has a range)
According to the World Happiness Report, for a developed country, a loss of $1 reduces WELLBYs by 1/100,000, and if a year of life is worth 7.5/10 WELLBYs, we should be willing to pay $750,000 to safe a life year
$1,000,000 = 1 WELLBY
https://worldhappiness.report/ed/2021/living-long-and-living-well-the-wellby-approach/
Can calculate lifetime earnings/net worth to approximate as well
US median individual income: $40,000 (adjusted slightly upwards from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_income_in_the_United_States due to inflation)
US median individual net worth: $121,700, and $250,000 at retirement (https://www.cnbc.com/select/average-net-worth-of-americans-ages-65-to-74)
Lifetime inflation-adjusted earnings: $40,000 * 40 working years (25–65, aligns with common estimates of working years) = $1,600,000 ($1,200,000 after taxes)
Lifetime potential net worth (assuming 10% savings rate on $40,000 - https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/personal-savings, inflation-adjusted interest of 6%, accumulation until age 65, and inflation-adjusted growth of 6%): $620,000
Average US lifespan: 80 years (adjusted slightly upwards assuming technological advances)
Conversion Table
Overall Score | Financial - Lifetime Net Worth | Financial - Lifetime Earnings (After Tax) | Time - Hours Saved | Time - Years Saved | Health - EV Micromorts Averted | Health - Micromorts Averted/Modified Microlives Gained | Health - Standard Microlives Gained |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
$250,000 | $1,200,000 | 60,000 | 7 (6.85) | 170,000 (171,428) | 85,000 (85,714) | 120,000 | |
$225,000 | $1,080,000 | 54,000 | 6.3 | 76500 | |||
$200,000 | $960,000 | 48,000 | 5.6 | 68000 | |||
$175,000 | $840,000 | 42,000 | 4.9 | 59500 | |||
$150,000 | $720,000 | 36,000 | 4.2 | 51000 | |||
$125,000 | $600,000 | 30,000 | 3.5 | 42500 | |||
$100,000 | $480,000 | 24,000 | 2.8 | 34000 | |||
$75,000 | $360,000 | 18,000 | 2.1 | 25500 | |||
$50,000 | $240,000 | 12,000 | 1.4 | 17000 | |||
$25,000 | $120,000 | 6,000 | 0.7 | 8500 | |||
$0.20 | $1 | 0.05 | 0.0000058 | 0.14 | 0.07 | 0.1 | |
$4 | $20 | 1 | 0.000114 | 2.85 |
High-Level: I used dollars (in earnings, $20 per hour) to convert to time, and I used time to convert to micromorts and modified microlives (350,000 hours remaining in life, so 0.35 hours per micromort)
We’re assuming that an hour is worth $20, which aligns with US government figures (and median wages), so $1,200,000 in lifetime earnings is equivalent to 60,000 in hours gained (7 years).
If one life has 700,000 hours, a micromort is worth 0.7 hours (a microlife, which is normally 0.5 hours and ignores childhood). So that would be a modified micromort, which I think is more useful. The official micromort is 0.5 hours, which only accounts for the length of an adult’s life. However, these figures are actually assuming a full life is 700,000 hours. Of course, a micromort incurred at the middle of life only causes 1-millionth of a loss of 350,000 hours in expectation. So 1 micromort is worth 0.35 hours, or ~$7.
Conversion Factors