What Shrinking U.S. Life Expectancy May Be Telling Us About the Pandemic Response.

Life expectancy in the US dropped for the second consecutive year in 2021, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. At 76.4 years for a person born in 2021, life expectancy is now the lowest it’s been in a quarter century, since 1996.

For American men, life expectancy fell by over eight months; for women, by seven months. The figure fell for every age category in the nation over the age of one.

At the turn of the twentieth century, life expectancy in the US was just 47 years. The figure rose to 68 years by mid-century and continued to climb until 2019, the year before the global coronavirus pandemic, when it reached 79 years.

Although the extent of the decline in 2021 was less than in 2020, when life expectancy fell by two years, to 77 years, the continuing decline is in marked contrast to other developed nations, which have bounced back as the pandemic has receded.

the pandemic precipitated a mental-health crisis of unprecedented scale among the nation’s Zoomers. The CDC’s data reveal death rates among young adults and children – which had been declining before the pandemic – increased.

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