Surprisingly Dangerous Jobs In America

Fri, May 16, 2014

You can’t avoid danger.

—Jeannette Walls, Half Broke Horses

Yeah, you can. Don’t get one of these jobs, for instance.

—me

David Henderson has rightly earned the title contrarian with his latest post which, to kick off National Police Week, points out that it’s more dangerous to be a farmer than a policeman — “For every 100,000 police, the annual fatality rate is 20. For every 100,000 farmers, it is 40% higher, at 28.” (Source.)

Now, on this blog, we’re good empiricists, and nothing warms the heart of an empiricist more than refuting a well-known, common sense “truth” with, you know, observations and data.

So that got me thinking: What jobs are more (or less) dangerous than one might naively suspect?

I present to you this delightful graph, taken from the Bureau of Labor Statistics:

Notice that the data here for farmers agrees with David’s. He has 28 per 100,000 versus the charts 25.3 per 100,000. (And given the endemic underreporting, the 28 number might well be more accurate.) Police officer isn’t included on the chart but David’s data would make it about as dangerous as… taxi driver. That’s right, folks. The brave folks keeping the peace of our nation? Just as brave as your local cabby. (Actually, given that police deaths dropped 20 percent in 2012, cab drivers might be braver.)

I’m going to propose we replace Police Week with Fisherman Week, because it’s about 6 times more dangerous to be a fisherman than a police officer. (And who doesn’t love a good tuna steak?)

Or maybe we should keep Police Week, but dedicate 6 weeks to celebrating fishermen. It’s only fair. And, of course, three weeks to pilots and people involved with flying, along with a solid two weeks for garbage men.

Some other fun facts

Digging a bit further into the data, we find this somewhat troubling statistic: 92% of workplace fatalities are men. (Do we blame the patriarchy for this one?)

And if you were wondering what state is the most dangerous: North Dakota. It’s about as dangerous to work in North Dakota as it is to be a police officer. From the AFL-CIO’s “Death on the Job” report:

Among all of the states, North Dakota stands out as an exceptionally dangerous and deadly place to work. The state’s job fatality rate of 17.⁷⁄₁₀₀,000 workers is alarming. It is more than five times the national average and is one of the highest state job fatality rates ever reported for any state.

So probably we should have a week celebrating North Dakatons, too.

Further Reading

• If you’re interested in surprising data, check out my articles on thinking and driving, MSNBC and Fox News, any of the interesting finds posts, and my comparison of the death toll of HIV/AIDS, tobacco, and smallpox.
• If you thought being a fisherman was dangerous, the death rate from smoking a pack of cigarettes a day is 300 per 100,000 (or 2.5x as dangerous.)
• Looking through some other data, being a marine about as dangerous as smoking a pack of cigarettes each day.
• But, really, the most dangerous profession that I can find data for is Chicago crack dealer, with a whopping 7,000 deaths per 100,000, making it about 350x more dangerous than being a police officer.
• Google doesn’t return any relevant results for “abolish police week.” Maybe someone who is not me should start a petition.