The average life expectancy in the United States is 79.0 years as of 2024, up from 78.4 in 2023. That 0.6-year increase reflects declining death rates from several major causes, including unintentional injuries, COVID-19, heart disease, cancer, and homicide.
Current Numbers by Sex and Age
Women in the U.S. live longer than men by a significant margin. Female life expectancy reached 81.4 years in 2024, while male life expectancy hit 76.5, a gap of nearly five years. Both figures climbed from the prior year, but men saw a slightly larger gain (0.7 years) compared to women (0.3 years).
If you’ve already reached 65, the numbers shift in your favor. A 65-year-old American can expect to live an additional 19.7 years on average, reaching about 84.7. Women at 65 have roughly 20.8 years remaining, while men at 65 have about 18.4 years. Life expectancy is a population-wide average calculated from birth, so surviving past the years when accidents, overdoses, and other early-life causes of death are most common naturally extends your projected lifespan.
The Pandemic Drop and Recovery
Before COVID-19, U.S. life expectancy sat at 78.8 years in 2019. The pandemic pushed it down sharply, bottoming out at 76.4 in 2021, a loss of nearly 2.5 years in just two years. That was the largest two-year decline since the 1920s.
The recovery has been steady but gradual. Life expectancy climbed back to 77.5 in 2022, then 78.4 in 2023, and now 79.0 in 2024. The current figure finally surpasses the pre-pandemic baseline, largely because COVID-19 deaths have dropped substantially and mortality from heart disease, cancer, and accidental injuries has also declined.
Leading Causes of Death
The biggest killers in the U.S. shape these numbers more than anything else. Heart disease remains the top cause of death, responsible for roughly 683,000 deaths per year. Cancer follows at about 620,000. After that, the list includes accidental injuries (197,000), stroke (167,000), and chronic lower respiratory diseases (146,000). Together, these five causes account for the majority of American deaths.
Reductions in heart disease and cancer mortality have been the most consistent drivers of life expectancy gains over the past several decades. When those numbers tick down even slightly, it moves the national average upward because they affect so many people.
The Opioid Crisis Still Drags the Numbers Down
One of the most striking forces working against American longevity is the overdose epidemic. Opioid-related deaths alone reduced U.S. life expectancy by 0.67 years in 2022, up from 0.52 years in 2019. That means the national average would be closer to 79.7 years if opioid deaths were removed from the equation entirely.
The toll is staggering in raw numbers: 3.1 million total years of life lost to opioid deaths in 2022, with the average victim losing 38 years of expected life. These aren’t deaths concentrated among older adults. They disproportionately strike people in their 20s, 30s, and 40s, which is why the effect on overall life expectancy is so large relative to the number of deaths.
The burden falls unevenly. American Indian/Alaska Native men lose an estimated 1.5 years of life expectancy to opioid deaths alone. Black men lose about 1.1 years. Stimulants like methamphetamine and cocaine are now involved in half of all opioid-related deaths, a pattern of polysubstance use that has made the crisis harder to address.
The Gender Gap
Women outliving men is not unique to the U.S., but the nearly five-year gap (81.4 vs. 76.5) is wider than in many peer nations. Several factors drive this. Men are more likely to die from accidents, overdoses, suicide, and homicide, all of which tend to occur at younger ages and pull the average down disproportionately. Men also have higher rates of heart disease at younger ages and are less likely to seek preventive medical care.
The gap narrowed slightly in 2024 because male life expectancy rose faster than female life expectancy. Whether that trend continues will depend largely on whether overdose deaths and accident rates, both of which affect men more heavily, keep declining.
Income and Life Expectancy
Perhaps the starkest divide in American longevity isn’t sex or geography. It’s money. Research tracking income and mortality found that men in the top 1% of earners live to about 87, while men in the bottom 1% live to about 73. That’s a gap of nearly 15 years. For women, the gap is about 10 years: 89 for the wealthiest versus 79 for the poorest.
The reasons are layered. Higher income correlates with better access to healthcare, healthier neighborhoods, less exposure to pollution and violence, lower rates of smoking and obesity, and less chronic stress. These advantages compound over a lifetime. A wealthy person doesn’t just get better treatment when sick; they’re less likely to get sick in the first place, and they’re far less likely to die from the kinds of injuries and overdoses that pull down life expectancy among younger adults.
How the U.S. Compares Globally
Despite spending more on healthcare per person than any other nation, the U.S. consistently ranks below most other wealthy countries in life expectancy. Japan, Switzerland, Australia, Spain, and several other nations have average life expectancies of 82 to 84 years, putting them three to five years ahead of the U.S. Even after the post-pandemic rebound to 79.0, the American average trails the OECD average.
The gap is driven largely by factors that are less prevalent in peer countries: higher rates of gun violence, drug overdose deaths, obesity, lack of universal healthcare access, and larger income inequality. The U.S. actually performs well in survival rates for certain cancers and in access to advanced medical technology, but those advantages are offset by broader population health challenges that other wealthy nations have managed more effectively.