New Study Puts Sept. 11 Payout at $38 Billion

The families or loved ones of civilians killed on Sept. 11 received, on average, $3.1 million in government and charitable awards. The families of those who died in uniform that day - including police officers and firefighters - received more, their average compensation exceeding $4.2 million. Insurance payments to businesses victimized by the terror attacks, for property damage alone, totaled $7.5 billion. These figures, some exceeding earlier estimates, others never before captured, emerged yesterday from a formal study that was two years in the making. It aimed to be the most comprehensive accounting of how much victims and businesses affected by the Sept. 11 attacks have been compensated by private and public means - an effort by charities and government agencies unmatched in the country's history. In all, the study, done by the Rand Corporation, a nonprofit research organization based in Santa Monica, Calif., found that victims and businesses have so far received $38.1 billion. Insurance companies accounted for the single greatest share of payments, about $19.6 billion. Government entities, including payments to individual families as well as loans to small businesses near ground zero, gave out nearly $16 billion. On page after page, the study gives more weight to the sense that the economic response to Sept. 11 has played out in ways both remarkable and uneven - "of a scope and scale never before seen," it says. And it does not mince words: For one thing, it noted that the government was, at times, ill-equipped to handle the crisis, citing in particular the often criticized performance of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.  [more]

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