It’s no big surprise U.S. life expectancy dropped in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but it’s a little surprising how much it dropped.
The U.S. saw the largest one-year drop in life expectancy in 2020 since World War II, according to new data released July 20 by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Health Statistics.
In 2020, life expectancy at birth for the total U.S. population was 77.3 years, declining by 1.5 years from 78.8 in 2019—and hit its lowest level since 2003. For decades, U.S. life expectancy was on the upswing. But that trend stalled in 2015, for several years, before rising again in 2019.
Life expectancy at birth for males was 74.5 years in 2020, representing a decline of 1.8 years from 76.3 years in 2019 and hitting its lowest level since 2003. For females, life expectancy declined to 80.2 years, decreasing 1.2 years from 81.4 years in 2019, and dropped to its lowest level since 2005.
The difference in life expectancy between the sexes was 5.7 years in 2020, increasing from 5.1 in 2019. Between 2000 and 2010, the difference in life expectancy between the sexes narrowed from 5.2 years to a low of 4.8 years and then gradually increased to 5.1 in 2019.
The Hispanic population experienced the largest decline in life expectancy between 2019 and 2020, from 81.8 to 78.8 years, reaching a level lower than what it was in 2006 (80.3 years), the first year for which life expectancy estimates by Hispanic origin were produced. The non-Hispanic black population experienced the second largest decline in life expectancy (from 74.7 to 71.8) and was the lowest estimate seen since 2000 for the black population (regardless of Hispanic origin).
Life expectancy for the non-Hispanic white population declined from 78.8 to 77.6 years, a level last observed in 2002 for the white population (regardless of Hispanic origin).
Mortality due to COVID-19 had, by far, the single greatest effect on the decline in life expectancy at birth between 2019 and 2020, overall, among men and women, and for the three race and Hispanic-origin groups shown in the report.
More than 3.3 million Americans died last year, far more than any other year in U.S. history, with COVID-19 accounting for about 11% of those deaths.
Through the week ending July 14, there have been 213,413 COVID-19 deaths recorded on death certificates in the U.S. during this year. Further, 81% of deaths in 2020 were among people age 65 and up; that percentage has dropped slightly in 2021 to less than 77%. Deaths in the 45-64 age group have risen from 16.6% of all deaths in 2020 to over 20% in 2021.
Second half of 2020 adds to problem
Elizabeth Arias with the NCHS Division of Vital Statistics spoke about the new report, to which she contributed, during a CDC podcast this week.
“Life expectancy declined an additional amount during the second half of 2020 and it did so more for some groups than for other groups,” Arias said. “For example, for the Hispanic population it declined an additional 1.1 years. For the non-Hispanic white population it declined an additional .4 years and for the non-Hispanic black population it declined an additional .2 years.”
When asked if she thought 2021 would eventually show another decline in life expectancy, Arias said probably not.
“I think what we would see is a small increase in life expectancy in comparison to what we saw in 2020,” Arias said. “In order for us to see another decline in life expectancy we would have to have a greater number of excess deaths than what we have seen so far. So I would say that we would probably see life expectancy go up but it won’t return to what it was in 2019.”
The number of daily deaths from COVID-19 has decreased remarkably from the once staggering 3,136 deaths per day just a few months ago in January 2021. In June 2021, an average of more than 300 people per daydied of COVID-19 in the U.S., even as vaccines are now readily available to most of the population. Nearly all COVID-19 deaths in the U.S. have been among unvaccinated people.
As of July 18, 2021, the total number of COVID-19 reported deaths in the U.S. topped 606,000.
Why life expectancy matters in retirement planning
As Liz Weston pointed out in a Nov. 2020 article by NerdWallet, assumptions about life expectancy can make a dramatic difference in retirement strategies.
People who underestimate their life expectancy could save too little for retirement and risk running out of money, while people who overestimate how long they’ll live might stay in the workforce longer than they want to or spend less in retirement than they could.
“For example, people who expect their retirement to last 20 years could withdraw 4.7% of their nest egg the first year and have a 90% chance their money would last, according to calculations by David Blanchett, [former] head of retirement research at Morningstar. To have a similar success rate with a 30-year retirement, the initial withdrawal would have to drop to 3%,” the article said.
Given those assumptions, someone who wanted to withdraw $25,000 the first year from their retirement funds would need to save about $532,000 to fund a 20-year retirement. Planning for a 30-year retirement would mean saving $833,000, or about 57% more.
Life expectancy is also a factor in when people should start taking Social Security.
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