Life expectancy in the United States reached a record high of 79.0 years in 2024, according to the National Center for Health Statistics. That marks an increase of 0.6 years from 2023 and represents a full recovery from the sharp declines during the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite hitting this milestone, the U.S. still lags behind nearly every other wealthy nation.
How the U.S. Compares to Other Wealthy Countries
Even at its all-time high, U.S. life expectancy falls 3.7 years below the average of comparable high-income countries, which sits at 82.7 years. Among peer nations like Japan, Switzerland, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, and the United Kingdom, the U.S. has the lowest life expectancy at birth for both women and men. That gap has persisted for decades and actually widened during the pandemic years.
The reasons are complex: higher rates of chronic disease, drug overdose deaths, gun violence, limited access to healthcare for lower-income populations, and higher rates of obesity all contribute. Americans spend far more per person on healthcare than any other country, yet consistently live shorter lives on average.
Life Expectancy by Sex
Women in the U.S. live significantly longer than men. Before the pandemic, in 2019, the gap was already notable: women could expect to live 81.4 years compared to 76.3 years for men, a difference of 5.1 years. By 2021, that gap had widened to 5.8 years as male life expectancy dropped more steeply, falling to 73.5 years while female life expectancy declined to 79.3 years.
Men are more likely to die from heart disease, accidents, drug overdoses, and suicide at younger ages, which pulls their average down more sharply. The gap has since narrowed slightly as overall life expectancy has rebounded, but women continue to outlive men by roughly five to six years.
Racial and Ethnic Disparities
Some of the starkest differences in life expectancy fall along racial and ethnic lines. As of 2023, Asian Americans had the highest life expectancy at 85.2 years, more than 15 years longer than the group with the shortest lifespan. Hispanic Americans followed at 81.3 years, then White Americans at 78.4 years and Black Americans at 74.0 years. American Indian and Alaska Native people had the lowest life expectancy at just 70.1 years.
That 15-year gap between Asian Americans and American Indian/Alaska Native populations reflects deep structural differences in access to healthcare, rates of chronic illness, poverty, and environmental conditions. Black Americans saw some of the sharpest declines during the pandemic and have been slower to recover. Hispanic Americans, despite having lower average incomes than White Americans, consistently live longer, a pattern researchers call the “Hispanic paradox,” likely driven by strong social networks, lower smoking rates, and immigration selection effects.
Where You Live Matters
Life expectancy varies dramatically by state. In 2022, Hawaii led the country at 80.0 years, followed by Massachusetts at 79.8 and New Jersey at 79.6. At the other end, Kentucky came in at 73.6, Mississippi at 72.6, and West Virginia at the bottom with 72.2 years. That’s a gap of nearly eight years between the healthiest and least healthy states.
The states with the shortest lifespans tend to cluster in the Southeast and Appalachia, where rates of obesity, smoking, heart disease, and opioid misuse are higher, and where access to healthcare is more limited. States with higher life expectancy generally have higher incomes, better-funded public health systems, lower smoking rates, and broader insurance coverage.
The Income and Inequality Gap
Income is one of the strongest predictors of how long you’ll live. A sweeping analysis published in The Lancet examined life expectancy disparities across different population groups in the U.S., defined by combinations of income, race, geography, and residential segregation. The gap between the groups with the highest and lowest life expectancy was 20.4 years as of 2021. That’s a staggering divide within a single country, larger than the gap between some of the world’s richest and poorest nations.
Wealthier Americans have better access to preventive care, healthier food, safer neighborhoods, and less exposure to environmental hazards. They’re also less likely to work physically demanding or dangerous jobs. These advantages compound over a lifetime, producing differences in lifespan that dwarf the impact of any single medical treatment or intervention.
Heart Disease and the Limits on Longevity
Heart disease remains the single largest killer in the United States, accounting for roughly 900,000 deaths in 2019 alone. Research from the American Heart Association found that stalled progress in reducing cardiovascular death rates is one of the key reasons U.S. life expectancy growth has lagged behind other countries. When researchers modeled the impact of maintaining strong cardiovascular health, they found that more than 40% of the additional years of life gained after age 50 came specifically from avoiding cardiovascular death.
In practical terms, this means the factors most likely to influence your personal longevity are the familiar ones: blood pressure, cholesterol, blood sugar, physical activity, diet, weight, and whether you smoke. These account for a larger share of the life expectancy equation than most people realize. Cancer is the second leading cause of death, but heart disease’s contribution to the overall average is uniquely large because it kills so many people in middle age, pulling the average down substantially.
The Pandemic Dip and Recovery
The years 2020 and 2021 saw the sharpest drops in U.S. life expectancy since World War II. From a pre-pandemic level of about 78.8 years in 2019, life expectancy fell to roughly 77 years in 2020 and bottomed out near 76.4 in 2021. COVID-19 was the primary driver, but drug overdose deaths also surged during this period.
The recovery since then has been steady. Life expectancy climbed back to 78.4 in 2023 and then to 79.0 in 2024, finally surpassing the pre-pandemic peak. Not every group has recovered equally, though. American Indian/Alaska Native and Black populations experienced steeper drops and have been slower to return to their pre-pandemic levels, widening existing disparities at least temporarily.
At 79.0 years, the U.S. has reached its highest life expectancy ever recorded. Whether it continues to climb will depend largely on progress against heart disease, drug overdose deaths, and the persistent inequalities that leave some Americans living more than two decades less than others.