A look at Carter’s longevity record

At 98, ex- president has lived longer than any other

With news this Presidents Day weekend that Jimmy Carter entered hospice care, it brings into sharp focus the remarkable number of presidents who like Carter have served and returned to long private lives these past few decades.

Carter has lived longer than 46 other presidents in more than 230 years.

At 98, Carter, the 39th president, has outlived George H. W. Bush by just under four years – something that seemed unlikely in 2015, when Carter announced that cancer had spread to his brain.

Carter has rarely ruminated about his longevity; he’s the oldest living president and the president who has lived longest after his term in office. His seemingly most important milestone arrived in 2020, when he celebrated his 75th wedding anniversary with Rosalynn Carter, which made the Carters the longest- married presidential couple in history.

“The best thing I ever did was marry Rosalynn,” Carter said in a C- SPAN interview at The Carter Center in 2015. “That’s the pinnacle of my life.”

Still, the onetime peanut farmer’s and decadeslong philanthropist’s longevity marks a pivotal moment in post- presidential history.

Before 2004, only two presidents lived past 90, including the nation’s second president, John Adams, who died July 4, 1826 – the same day as Thomas Jefferson, who was seven years his junior.

Considering the average American man’s life expectancy hovered around 40 in Adams’ lifetime, it’s little surprise that his longevity was an outlier among the early presidents.

Most presidents’ natural lives, though, have been longer than the average American man’s. Since 2004, every former U. S. president has lived into his 90s, while the average man’s life expectancy has been in the mid- 70s.

The byproduct: A lot of living former presidents.

All the other former presidents today are 76 or younger. Barack Obama turns 62 this summer.

President Joe Biden, the oldest elected U. S. president at 80, has outlived more than 70% of past presidents.

ROBERT FRANKLIN/ USA TODAY NETWORK Former President Jimmy Carter speaks in 2018 about his work building homes with Habitat for Humanity.