So what is the actual value of good oral health? We live in a time and place that likes to put dollar signs on everything, so let’s try to put a dollar sign on a healthy smile. It’s not too hard.
Value to the Individual
You’ve heard the adage that a picture is worth a thousand words? Well, a smile can be worth thousands of dollars. A recent study shows that more than half of respondents said a healthy smile made them more likely to be hired and receive a larger salary offer.
So let’s say the larger salary offer is in the range of 5 percent. AOL puts the average starting salary for 2012 college graduates at $44,259. Five percent of that is more than $2,200. Extrapolating that salary differential over 30 years and accounting for a 3.5 percent raise each year produces a big number.
Payoff to the individual: $114,238 over 30 years.
Value to the Employer
Dental-related work absences account for an annual loss of 164 million hours in productivity. The Bureau of Labor Statistics puts the average hourly wage at $23.58. You can do the math from here.
Payoff to all employers: $3.867 billion annually.
Value to our Future – Children and Communities
Poor oral health among children has been linked to lower academic performance, so let’s suppose that poor oral health keeps two kids per class per year from going to college. The $44,000 annual average salary for college grads drops to $21,000 for high-school grads.
The BLS estimates the income differential between high-school grads and college grads at more than $900,000 over a working lifetime. Take that figure, multiply it by 3 million kids who don’t go to college because of poor oral health, throw in a couple of billion dollars in social costs stemming from lower levels of education, and you begin to understand why Delta Dental of Wisconsin donates hundreds of thousands of dollars each year to improve kids’ oral health.
Payoff to society: $60 billion-plus annually.
Total Value
The total value is, as you might guess, a very large number.
Through its charitable contributions and its innovative employee-benefits plans, Delta Dental of Wisconsin is working hard to help protect the healthy smiles of millions of Wisconsin residents, all across the state. We understand what’s at stake.
So the next time someone tells you that a healthy smile is priceless, you may want to correct them. It’s not exactly priceless, but it is very, very valuable.
