U.S. life expectancy plunges in 2020

Greatest decreases seen among Black and Hispanic Americans as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic

Life expectancy in the United States fell by a year and a half in 2020, largely because of the deadly coronavirus pandemic, a federal report said Wednesday, a staggering drop that affected Hispanic and Black Americans more severely than white people.

It was the steepest decline in life expectancy in the United States since the Second World War.

From 2019 to 2020, Hispanic people experienced the greatest drop in life expectancy — three years — and Black Americans saw a decrease of 2.9 years. White Americans experienced the smallest decline, of 1.2 years.

The numbers can vary from year to year, providing only a snapshot in time of the general health of a population: If an American child was born today and lived an entire life under the conditions of 2020, that child would be expected to live 77.3 years, down from 78.8 in 2019. The last time life expectancy was so low was in 2003, according to the National Center for Health Statistics.

Racial and ethnic disparities have persisted throughout the coronavirus pandemic — a reflection of many factors, including the differences in overall health and available health care between white, Hispanic and Black people in the United States. Dr. Mary T. Bassett, a professor of health and human rights at Harvard University, said the numbers were devastating but not surprising.

The coronavirus “uncovered the deep racial and ethnic inequities in access to health,” Bassett said.

The precipitous drop in 2020, caused largely by COVID-19, is not likely to be permanent. In 1918, the flu pandemic wiped 11.8 years from Americans’ life expectancy, and the number fully rebounded the following year. But Elizabeth Arias, the federal researcher who produced the report, said that life expectancy isn’t likely to bounce back to pre-pandemic levels any time soon.

Returning the life expectancy numbers to those of 2019 would require having “no more excess death because of COVID, and that’s already not possible in 2021,” Arias said. Beyond that, she said, the effects of the pandemic on life expectancy, especially for Black and Latino people, could linger for years.

“We may be seeing the indirect effects of the pandemic for some time to come,” she said.