A Century of Progress

Safety and health in America’s mining industry made significant strides during the 20th century and over the last 44 years in particular. In 1978, the first year the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) operated under the new Federal Mine Safety and Health Act of 1977, 242 miners died in mining accidents. MSHA continues to work to reduce injuries, illnesses, and death through strong enforcement as well as active outreach, education and training, and technical support to the mining industry. (No one can deny the progress that has been made to reduce mine fatalities in the United States).

MSHA posts a link on the MSHA website, “MSHA At a Glance”. It contains statistical information that MSHA has gathered through enforcement activities. The current version appeared on the MSHA website on December 6, 2023. It contains data for the 2017 through 2023 fiscal years.

There are four separate charts. One each for:

All Mine Safety & Health

Coal Mine Safety & Health

Metal & Nonmetal Mine Safet & Health

Mine Contractors

Taking a deep dive into the statistics without specific numbers and other inspection data to make exact calculations and an interpretation of what the data really indicates is not recommended.  Statistical analysis is a complex science and rarely understood by anyone but the professional who work with it every day. But, we can make a “relative” judgement, comparing year to year and the direction the statistics are going in to determine the “relative” effect of the cost of compliance.

Here is our first chart. Please notice I added our new “relative stats” to the bottom of each spreadsheet.  Using simple math, we can compute:

“relative Inspection Hours” = (Number of mines x Total Mining Area Inspection Hours/Mine). 

“relative Citations per Inspection Hour” (Citations and Orders Issued/Total Inspection Hours).

“relative Citations per MSHA Inspection Day” (Citations per Inspection Hour x 5 hours VIPD).

 “relative Average Cost of Each Citation” (Dollar Amount Assessed (Millions) divided by Citations and Orders Issued). 

“relative Average Cost Per Miner" (Dollar Amount Assessed (Millions) divided by Number of Miners).

The numbers line up and generally increased from left to right (2017 to 2023) while the injury and fatality rates decreased going left to right (2017 to 2023). I don’t know if this is coincidence or not , but it is extremely interesting because MSHA is in fact, a money-generating agency that has brought in more money to the federal government while the industry has become safer. 


Additional factors such as the “built-in” cost of living increases to MSHA penalties each January 15th does contribute to such increases. The number of miners and mines also creates a stress on our relative terms. Although not perfect, it does give us a different perspective on whether each new “relative” stat is increasing or decreasing and what it costs to prevent the number of fatal accidents in any given year. Here are the other charts.

Coal Mine Safety & Health

Metal & Nonmetal Mine Safety & Health