Most people like the idea of living for as long as possible past age 65, but unexpected extra years of life complicate retirement planning.
For advisors, the extra years make managing a defined benefit plan or helping workers keep the defined contribution plan income coming that much harder.
The National Center for Health Statistics helps benefit plans see what's coming by posting state-level life expectancy estimates for residents who are 65 as well as estimates for life expectancy at birth.
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The latest U.S. state life tables report is for 2021, a year in the middle of the federal COVID-19 public health emergency period.
U.S. life expectancy at birth fell to 76.4 years in 2021, from 78.8 years in 2019, before the pandemic began, and U.S. life expectancy at age 65 fell to 18.4 years, from 19.5 years.
At the state level, life expectancy at age 65 ranged from 16.1 years, in Mississippi and West Virginia, up to more than 20 years, in one warm state.
For a look at the 10 states with the longest life expectancy at age 65, along with the change in that indicator since 2019, see the gallery above.
(We generally rounded off to one decimal place, but we went further past the decimal point to break ties.)
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Allison Bell
Allison Bell, a senior reporter at ThinkAdvisor and BenefitsPRO, previously was an associate editor at National Underwriter Life & Health. She has a bachelor's degree in economics from Washington University in St. Louis and a master's degree in journalism from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. She can be reached through X at @Think_Allison.
