Washington, DC — According to a 2011 national study by the Better Hearing Institute (BHI), people with untreated hearing loss lose as much as $30,000 in annual income. As a result, the cost to US tax payers could be as much as $26 billion in unrealized federal tax collections.
The BHI study included over 40,000 households and showed that the use of hearing aids can reduce the risk of income loss by 90% to 100% for those with milder hearing loss, and from 65% to 77% for those with severe to moderate hearing loss.
The executive director of BHI, Sergei Kochkin, PhD, commented in a press release, “More than 34 million Americans suffer from hearing loss. Roughly 60% of them are in the workforce. Our study showed that when hearing loss is left unaddressed, it can pose significant barriers to productivity, performance, career success, and also to lifelong earnings.”