The British Medical Journal (BMJ) published on Wednesday a study on life expectancy in the US, based upon data from the CDC and the Human Mortality Database. In three years, from 2018 to 2020, there was an averaged 1.9-year decrease. First, this is much more than comparable countries. (The average decrease in 16 higher-income countries over that same time period was 2.5 months.) Further, in the US, there was yet another wide gap, amongst white, black and Hispanic populations — respectively, 1.4, 3.25, and 3.9 years.
Notably, life expectancy in the US climbed for 65 years, from the end of World War II until around 2010. The massive medical mobilization around World War II, then carried into the civilian economy (with HIll-Burton), was a significant part, along with scientific progress in medicine and better-paying jobs in industry. Life expectancy stagnated from 2010 - 2013, and actually began dropping in 2014. The decline of the Rust Belt — meaning lower paying jobs, less meaningful work, etc. — is cited as the major factor. The US, in reality, has been declining in life expectancy for six of the last seven years. There was actually a slight uptick in life expectancy in 2019 (with some significant progress in curtailing deaths from cancer) that was included in the 2018-20 study. However, simply measured by life expectancy alone, the US was in a decaying situation, and ripe for a punch in the gut from COVID-19.
