A friend asked how many incremental deaths have there been due to the Floyd Effect? 3,000?

Nah, it’s more like 36,000, according to a simplistic methodology that takes CDC death counts for homicides and motor vehicle accidents for the years 2020-2022 and compares them them to how many there would have been if the average of 2018-19 had been maintained for the first three years of the 2020s. I come up with 2020 to 2022 having seen 36,042 additional Deaths of Exuberance (killings and car crashes) than if the death toll had stayed at the same annual rate as in 2018-2019.

That’s a pretty big number.

These 36,000 incremental deaths are divided pretty equally into extra homicides and extra traffic fatalities. And they are about equally split into incremental black deaths and incremental all other deaths. (Note that the Totals below include deaths of Pacific Islanders, American Indians, and persons of mixed race in addition to the major categories listed.)

The Floyd Effect
Homicide Deaths
Year	Period	Total	Black	White	Hispanic	Asian
2018	Pre	18,830	9,469	5,460	3,045	263
2019	Pre	19,141	9,951	5,176	3,122	292
2020	Post	24,576	13,493	6,143	3,920	289
2021	Post	26,031	14,313	6,215	4,453	313
2022	Post	24,830	13,225	5,975	4,480	310
Total 2018-19		37,971	19,420	10,636	6,167	555
Total 2020-22		75,437	41,031	18,333	12,853	912
Avg 2018-19		18,986	9,710	5,318	3,084	278
Avg 2020-22		25,146	13,677	6,111	4,284	304
Incr in Avg Deaths / Year		6,160	3,967	793	1,201	27
% Incr in Avg		32%	41%	15%	39%	10%
Incremental Deaths 2020-22 vs. 2018-19 Avg		18,481	11,901	2,379	3,603	80
Share of Incremental			64%	13%	19%	0%
Motor Vehicle Accident Deaths
Year	Period	Total	Black	White	Hispanic	Asian
2018	Pre	39,404	6,140	25,095	6,123	837
2019	Pre	39,107	6,196	24,770	6,165	824
2020	Post	42,339	7,882	25,402	7,059	790
2021	Post	46,980	8,583	27,805	8,143	932
2022	Post	46,009	7,815	27,234	8,422	979
Total 2018-19		78,511	12,336	49,865	12,288	1,661
Total 2020-22		135,328	24,280	80,441	23,624	2,701
Avg 2018-19		39,256	6,168	24,933	6,144	831
Avg 2020-22		45,109	8,093	26,814	7,875	900
Incr in Avg Deaths / Year		5,854	1,925	1,881	1,731	70
% Incr in Avg		15%	31%	8%	28%	8%
Incremental Deaths 2020-22 vs. 2018-19 Avg		17,562	5,776	5,644	5,192	210
Share of Incremental			33%	32%	30%	1%
Homicide + Road Deaths
Year	Period	Total	Black	White	Hispanic	Asian
2018	Pre	58,234	15,609	30,555	9,168	1,100
2019	Pre	58,248	16,147	29,946	9,287	1,116
2020	Post	66,915	21,375	31,545	10,979	1,079
2021	Post	73,011	22,896	34,020	12,596	1,245
2022	Post	70,839	21,040	33,209	12,902	1,289
Total 2018-19		116,482	31,756	60,501	18,455	2,216
Total 2020-22		210,765	65,311	98,774	36,477	3,613
Avg 2018-19		58,241	15,878	30,251	9,228	1,108
Avg 2020-22		70,255	21,770	32,925	12,159	1,204
Incr in Avg Deaths / Year		12,014	5,892	2,674	2,932	96
% Incr in Avg		21%	37%	9%	32%	9%
Incremental Deaths 2020-22 vs. 2018-19 Avg		36,042	17,677	8,023	8,795	289
Share of Incremental			49%	22%	24%	1%

Yes, it would have been simpler to just compare 2020-22 to the three years 2017-19, but the CDC made a methodological change between 2017 and 2018 in going from four races to six races (splitting Pacific Islanders out from Asians and adding “multiracial“). So I just used the CDC’s data from 2018 onward to make an apples to apples comparison of 2020-22 to 2018-19.

Second, I didn’t bother adjusting for the modest population change during these years.

Third, the Floyd Effect didn’t begin on January 1, 2020, like I assume, but on May 25, 2020. Motor vehicle accident deaths weren’t up much in 2020 compared to previous years before Floyd Day. But black homicide deaths, after falling quite a bit in 2018 with the end of the Ferguson Effect under the Sessions Justice Department, began to creep upward again partway through 2019 and were rising in early 2020 before COVID and also during early COVID, before exploding in the last week of May during the first of the Mostly Peaceful Protests.

But graphing weekly data of black deaths, there’s no doubt that the Floyd Effect is closely linked to the demise of George Floyd and the subsequent cultural revolution. As you may recall, the “racial reckoning” was in all the papers at the time.

So, the fairest estimate of incremental deaths due to the Floyd Effect in 2020-2022 might be “approaching 35,000.” The Floyd Effect is no doubt continuing to pile up more incremental deaths in 2023, although homicides appear to be dropping (but are still well above the 2018-2019 rate).

Approaching 35,000 is quite a few deaths, especially among fairly young people with a lot of life expectancy left. It’s very similar to American deaths in the Korean War of 36,516, and more than five times the total deaths in the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars combined.

[Note: In CDC data, “homicides” refer to homicide victimizations, not homicide perpetrations.]