Benjamin Goodman is Vice President at the TIAA Institute.
With the recent announcement that US life expectancy has risen again, longevity is back in the news. As an actuary who has worked in the field for the last 4 decades, the topic of longevity has long fascinated me, particularly since longevity literacy (how long people believe they might live in retirement) along with financial literacy can improve retirement fluency and result in a more successful retirement.
The Good News and the Bad
Of course, the good news – that the US life expectancy rose to 78.4 years in 2023 – must also be weighed against some important considerations. Longer lifetimes require us to focus more on ensuring (and insuring) lifetime income. Longer lives may also mean more caregiving will be needed, especially if more unhealthy time is added to later life. As caregiving is already a strain on people’s incomes and retirement planning, this concern will only grow unless households do much more planning.
And there is also more bad news: the 78.4 number just takes us back to where we were in 2009! It seems that COVID-19 reduced life expectancy only temporarily, and now we’re back to where we were over a decade ago. Although we’re clearly better at extending life for patients with heart disease and cancer, we’re now challenged with an opioid epidemic and an obesity problem (what I call “the dread disease of drugs and donuts”).
On the bright side, obesity medications are showing promise, and deaths from drug overdoses have declined. Yet we will still need to cure aging itself, if we are to see a truly large increase in the human lifespan. Much of the life extension experience in the last century was due to factors such as better sanitation and refrigeration, medical breakthroughs, and reduced smoking – and those developments greatly improved health among the younger and young adult population. In contrast, life expectancy for retirees has only risen slowly, suggesting to some that there may be an upper bound for how long people can live.
Very Long Lives are Rare
The question of whether there is, in fact, an upper bound to the human lifespan has long been subject to debate. For years there are those who have predicted a large increase in longevity, accompanied by sensational stories about the prospects for long lives. Magazine headlines such as “This Baby Could Live to be 142 Years Old” and Aubrey De Grey’s “Longevity Escape Velocity” have captured the imagination of many.
Nevertheless, Jay Olshansky and many coauthors have stated that it would be hard to ever imagine life expectancy at birth exceeding 85. Indeed, he made a famous bet with Steven Austad, who claimed that someone born in 2001 would still be alive in 2150. They both put money in a fund that will pay the winner–or more likely a descendent of the winner–a large sum once the answer is known. Simply, Austad or his descendants will collect if there is a 150-year-old person on earth in the year 2150; if not, Olshansky’s descendants will win the bet.
The Takeaway
For myself, I’m reluctant to make such long term predictions about human lifespans. So instead, I’ll simply conclude by saying, “The Jets will win a Super Bowl within the next 100 years.” If I’m wrong, I will likely not be alive to admit my mistake; and if my prediction comes true before I leave this earth, I’ll get to say, “Ha! I told you so!”
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