Life Expectancy, A Critical Piece of the Social Security Solvency Puzzle, Rising Again - Associated Press
Yesterday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released statistics indicating nearly a year of growth in Americans’ expected lifespan. Longevity, of course, is a major factor in the long-term financing of Social Security, presenting a challenge to ensure benefit coverage for a number of years greater than anticipated in the program’s 90-year-old design. In a post today on their website, Associated Press reporter Mike Stobbe examines the announcement and the trend suggested by CDC for 2024. Stobbe notes that part of the upward trajectory is a continued rebound from the COVID-19 pandemic and, although slowing, is expected to continue.
Stobbe notes that life expectancy had increased steadily for decades, although the growth line had flattened from 2014 until the pandemic. In 2020-2021, at the height of the pandemic, life expectancy dropped by roughly 3%, from close to 79 to about 76 and a half. The rebound since then brought the rate back to about 78 and a half, although the growth rate appears to have slowed, according to the CDC. In any event, developing a solution to Social Security’s looming insolvency problem will undoubtedly need to factor life expectancy advances into its planning since it differs so substantially from the structural assumptions of 1935.
Read the Stobbe post in full here…
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