Life Expectancy in the U.S. Continues to Decline

Life expectancy in the United States fell again in 2021. However — and gratefully — it didn’t drop as far as 2020 when COVID led to a lot of deaths.

In 2021 life expectancy dropped to an average of 76.60 years. In 2020 the average was 76.99. Before COVID hit in early 2020, the average life span in the U.S. was 78.86 years. So the drop is significant.

What’s different this year from last is who is driving the rate down. In 2021 the drop to 76.60 years is people of caucasian ethnicity. The driver in 2020 was Hispanic and African Americans.

The study says white Americans saw a decline in 2021 of 0.34 years. Men were hit harder by that number than women. The Hispanic population didn’t see much of a drop in lifespan. African Americans — however — saw a decline of 0.42 years.

Taking the pandemic as a whole, the authors of the study said overall the drop in life expectancy has been — on average — 2.26 years. Hispanics saw a decline of 3.65 years and African Americans lost 2.80 years. Caucasians had lifespans drop an average of 1.72 years.