Published: September 8, 2011
One 9/11 Tally: $3.3 Trillion
One cube equals $1 billion
One 9/11 Tally: $3.3 Trillion
By SHAN CARTER and AMANDA COX Published: September 8, 2011
Al Qaeda spent roughly half a million dollars to destroy the World Trade Center and cripple the Pentagon. What has been the cost to the United States? In a survey of estimates by The New York Times, the answer is $3.3 trillion, or about $7 million for every dollar Al Qaeda spent planning and executing the attacks. While not all of the costs have been borne by the government — and some are still to come — this total equals one-fifth of the current national debt. All figures are shown in today’s dollars.
How $3.3 Trillion Is Spent
Experts differ on some of these numbers, as well as what should be included in a tally. Here, no attempt has been made to account for some of the imponderables: for example, are oil prices higher because of the Iraq war? But it is clear that it was the nation’s response, rather than the damage from the attacks, that accounts for the bulk of the cost.
In 2002, the New York City comptroller's office estimated the cost of replacing destroyed and damaged property.
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$8 bil.
World Trade Center buildings
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$6 bil.
Computers, furniture, cars
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$5 bil.
Other buildings
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$6 bil.
PATH, subway, phones, electricity
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$24 bil.
Value of life
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$5 bil.
Injury, W.T.C.
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$1 bil.
Cleanup
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It is estimated that the people who died at the World Trade Center would have earned around $10 billion over the rest of their working years, had their lives not ended. But based on government guidelines, the statistical value of lives lost was more than twice that amount.
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Includes money to compensate and treat emergency responders and others who were exposed to toxic fumes and dust.
Estimates of the economic impact of the attacks ranged from about $40 billion to $122 billion in a group of studies led by the CREATE Homeland Security Center at the University of Southern California. One of the higher estimates is shown below.
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$22 bil.
Business interruption
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$39 bil.
Reduced airline travel
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$61 bil.
Other reduced travel
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$1 bil.
Event cancellation
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This estimate was based on how long businesses damaged in the attacks took to relocate (2 to 4 weeks, in many cases) and the decline in air travel through 2003, beyond what might have been expected given the 2001 recession.
John Mueller, a political scientist at Ohio State University, and Mark G. Stewart, have estimated the increase in spending for homeland security and non-war-related national intelligence since 2001.
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$360 bil.
Homeland Security
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$100 bil.
Lost time at airports
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$19 bil.
Deaths in car accidents
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$110 bil.
National intelligence (domestic only)
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The homeland security total includes increases in spending across the federal government, not only the department of that name.
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Rough calculations suggest the cost of extra waiting time in airports might be as high as $10 billion a year. A RAND Corporation estimate for 2004 totaled $9.4 billion, based on 20-minute average delays and time worth $37 an hour, though waiting times have fallen since then.
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Fear and the inconvenience of airport security caused some people to drive instead of fly. Economists at Cornell University have estimated that 2,400 deaths in car accidents from Oct. 2001 to Sept. 2003 may be linked to the attacks because of this shift.
Estimates of total war funding by the Congressional Research Service include the first seven boxes below, as well as medical care for veterans.
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$402 bil.
Military
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$39 bil.
Local security
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$27 bil.
State Dept., Usaid
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$803 bil.
Military
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$28 bil.
Local security
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$41 bil.
State Dept., Usaid (Includes reconstruction funds, foreign aid)
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$42 bil.
Other / unallocated (Includes increased security for military bases, $0.5 billion to repair the Pentagon.)
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$8 bil.
Medical care for veterans
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$18 bil.
Disability payments
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$185 bil.
Indirect defense costs (Excludes homeland security spending by the Department of Defense, which is included in its own category.)
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$56 bil.
Value of lifeTroops and contractors
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AFGHANISTAN
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IRAQ
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Winslow T. Wheeler, a military analyst at the Center for Defense Information, attributes the growth in the “base” defense budget — spending not related to the wars — to changes in the political climate after Sept. 11. Estimates by the Eisenhower Research Project at Brown University place these indirect costs of the war at more than $300 billion since 2001.
It is impossible to determine future costs, but they are likely to be significant. Below, estimates of war funding from 2012 to 2016 and the cost of caring for veterans over the next 40 years.
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$55 bil.
IraqAssumes 5,000 troops remain through 2016.
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$223 bil.
Afghanistan
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$201 bil.
Medical care
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$355 bil.
Disability payments
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$33 bil.
Social Security payments
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Based on the current withdrawal plan for Afghanistan, and an approximate cost of $1.2 million per service member per year there, Todd Harrison, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, has estimated that the war in Afghanistan could cost $223 billion over the next five years.
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Linda J. Bilmes, a Harvard academic, has estimated that the total cost of health care and disability for veterans of the Iraq and Afghan wars will be at least $589 billion over the next 40 years. Some academics and government officials say these projections are too high. But there is broad agreement that the costs will keep going up for decades to come.