But, there’s hope. Every $1 spent on closing the water access gap yields nearly $5 in societal benefits—an incredible return on investment. Read the first national study to calculate the true cost of allowing millions of Americans to live without running water at home, and the hundreds of billions in economic benefits we could generate by closing the gap for good.
The United States, the world’s most prosperous democracy, has a hidden water crisis: over 2.2 million people living without running water or proper sanitation. Without working toilets, households in Appalachia are forced to flush sewage into nearby streams - sometimes the only source of drinking water for others in their community, causing outbreaks of illness. Families on the Navajo Nation walk or drive miles to haul drinking water, which they ration for weeks at a time, while people in Texas border colonias often spend more than a third of their monthly income on trucked water deliveries which may not be potable. Many Americans see water poverty as an issue affecting only low-income countries far away, and are completely unaware that the same crisis exists right in their own backyards.
This is the water access gap — where millions of Americans struggle to meet their basic needs every day. Every year that we allow the gap to stay open, the U.S. economy loses a staggering $8.58 billion in decreased household earnings, higher healthcare costs, lost tax revenues, and labor market disruptions.
As bleak as these numbers are, there is cause for hope: our report shows that closing the water access gap yields a return on investment of nearly 5 to 1. For every dollar invested in bringing water and sanitation to a family for the first time, the economy gains $4.65. This means closing the water access gap could unlock nearly $200 billion of economic value over the next 50 years.
The Cost of Living Without a Tap and Toilet
Past investments in water infrastructure have excluded many Indigenous tribes, communities of color, immigrant communities, low-income communities, and rural areas. Closing the water access gap will help correct these inequities, and directly benefit underserved communities. Other communities have seen their water systems fall offline as a result of climate change, economic shifts, and a legacy of disinvestment. Not having access to water and sanitation quantifiably impacts every aspect of a person’s life. In this report, DigDeep analyzed a wide variety of public health and economic data to calculate the price tag of life without a tap or toilet. The economic costs are broken into the following:
- Time lost: $846 million, including estimates that working-age adults spend an average of 232 hours per year, and school-age children spend an average of 170 hours per year collecting water for their homes.
- Physical health: $762 million, including increased risk of disease, physical injuries from hauling water, and greater overall healthcare bills. Each year the water access gap causes 219,000 cases of waterborne illness and takes an estimated 610 lives—the equivalent of two passenger planes falling from the sky.
- Water purchase costs: $291 million, as it’s estimated that 40% of these homes rely on bottled water as the primary source of drinking water - resulting in an average family spend of $1,350 per year.
- Mental health: $218 million, people living without water at home are 22% more likely to suffer from mental health conditions as a result of stresses and depression. Each year, the gap causes 71,000 cases of mental illness.
- Additional GDP impacts from lost productivity: $924 million, which accounts for lost earnings and productivity due to physical disease and mental health conditions, and a decrease in individual earnings.
