U.S. life expectancy by year, 1900–2024: chart and table

U.S. life expectancy rose 31.7 years from 1900 to 2024

In the final National Center for Health Statistics series, period life expectancy at birth rises from 47.3 years in 1900 to 79.0 years in 2024. The 2024 values are 76.5 years for males and 81.4 for females. Those endpoints are 125 annual mortality snapshots, not predictions for people born in those years.

Source: CDC/NCHS, United States Life Tables, 2024, Table 19. The early endpoint needs a geographic qualifier: 1900–1928 covers expanding death-registration states; national coverage begins in 1929. Values are shown at the source table’s one-decimal precision.

Landmark years in the historical series

Two large disruptions are visible without smoothing

The largest one-year break in this series surrounds 1918: the total value moves from 50.9 in 1917 to 39.1 in 1918, then to 54.7 in 1919. The 1918 influenza pandemic is the defining mortality event behind that historical low. The page connects annual observations but does not smooth them, so the break remains visible.

The modern decline is smaller but still clear. Total life expectancy falls from 78.8 in 2019 to 77.0 in 2020 and 76.4 in 2021. NCHS reports identify COVID-19 as the main contributor to those two years of decline. The value then recovers for three consecutive years—to 77.5 in 2022, 78.4 in 2023, and a series high of 79.0 in 2024. The 2024 release note covers the latest one-year change in more detail.

The female–male gap changed shape over time

The published female value exceeded the male value by 2.0 years in 1900. NCHS reports that the difference widened to 7.8 years in 1975, remained 7.8 in 1979, narrowed to 4.8 by 2010, rose to 5.8 in 2021, and declined to 4.9 in 2024. The chart keeps all three official columns visible instead of manufacturing a total by averaging male and female values.

These columns are national population summaries, not adjustments for a named person. The source does not publish categories beyond male and female, and its all-races-and-origins series should not be used to infer the history of any one racial or ethnic population.

Calendar year is not birth year

A period value for 1980 asks what average lifetime would result if the age-specific mortality rates observed in 1980 applied throughout a hypothetical lifetime. It does not follow babies born in 1980 through the later mortality conditions they actually encounter. That second question requires a cohort series.

The cohort-versus-period explainer shows why those labels cannot be swapped even when the same year appears beside both.

Geography and methods change across 125 years

Table 19 labels 1900–1928 as death-registration states and 1929 onward as the United States. Alaska enters the series in 1959 and Hawaii in 1960. Before 1945, annual rows include NCHS estimates between official decennial life tables. The annual program begins in 1945; complete single-year tables through age 100 begin in 1997.

NCHS also documents old-age estimation and population revisions. Values for 2001–2009 were re-estimated, and the 2008–2024 tables use a different old-age smoothing method from 2000–2007. Beginning in 1970, deaths of U.S. nonresidents are excluded. These breaks do not make the long series unusable, but they do rule out treating every tenth of a year as if it came from one unchanged instrument.

Complete annual table and downloads

The table below transcribes all 125 all-races-and-origins rows from NCHS Table 19. It deliberately uses the current report where four cells differ from CDC’s older 1900–2018 machine-readable file. Every row identifies whether its area is the early death-registration states or the United States; no years are interpolated.

What is the latest final U.S. life expectancy year?

As of this page’s August 28, 2026 update, 2024 is the newest final national life table and 79.0 years is its both-sexes value at birth. A calendar label later than 2024 would need a newer final NCHS release; this dataset does not extend the line with provisional estimates or forecasts.