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Death of The Death Care Industry
Death is a dying industry with an economic phenomenon. As Americans perceived value of “traditional” funerals diminish, the cost of funerals have increased nearly 1,328% in just four decades. In 1960 the average cost of a funeral was $706 when only 3.56% of bodies were cremated. Today the average traditional funeral costs between $8,000 and $10,000, and about 42% of people are cremated. The US funeral industry accounts for about $20 billion in annual economic activity, with around 130,000 employees that make a living on the 1.5 million people that go to rest each year.
Many communities have turned a blind eye to what goes on inside funeral homes, as many people prefer not to know the ins and out of the business. In addition, grieving customers in need of funeral goods and services may not be in a healthy state of mind to make financial decisions. Grief has similar side effects of alcohol consumption, such as numbness, guilt, and depression, resulting in less alert and price sensitive customers. In addition, the funeral industry is somewhat taboo in the sense that communities in general don’t communicate with one another about what are acceptable practices in this industry.
Some funeral service providers have taken advantage of this by encouraging the lack of transparency in the industry, charging exorbitant prices for funeral goods and services and charging people who appear to be wealthy higher prices. After Jessica Mitford published The American Way of Death in 1963, to expose the abuses in the funeral industry, a groundswell of support for government intervention followed. Under President Ronald Reagan The Funeral Rule was first enacted to protect consumers from deceptive practices, but the rule has yet to put the nail in the coffin.
Adaptado de: <https://www.forbes.com/sites/perianneboring/2014/04/25/the-death-of-the-death-care-industry-and-eternal-life-online/#389398011c1a>Acessado em 13 de outubro de 2017