waterloop #146: The $8 Billion Cost Of No Water

A new report finds that the 2.2 million people in America who live without running water or a toilet at home is costing the U.S. economy over $8.5 billion a year. The biggest impacts to the GDP come from lost productivity, time lost at work or school to access water, physical health impacts, water purchase costs, and mental health impacts. In this episode, George McGraw, CEO and Founder of DigDeep, discusses the report and how closing the water gap would generate $200 billion over the next 50 years. George also talks about recommendations to treat the water access gap as a crisis, refocusing federal funding, and building a domestic WASH sector. waterloop is a nonprofit media outlet. For all content visit https://www.waterloop.org waterloop is sponsored by Varuna, the tool that provides water utilities with full system awareness and offers a new resilience dashboard that identifies internal and external risks. Learn more at https://bit.ly/waterloopVaruna