U.S. Life Expectancy On the Rise

The American lifespan hit a new high as deaths from overdoses and COVID fall

Let’s end the week on a positive note, shall we? An American born in 2024 can expect to live to age 79, on average. That’s an increase of more than half a year from 2023, according to a report from the National Center for Health Statistics released Thursday. That means that U.S. life expectancy just rose to the highest mark in history.

It's the result of not only the dissipation of the COVID-19 pandemic, but also waning death rates from all the nation's top killers, including heart disease, cancer, and drug overdoses. According to the Associated Press, preliminary statistics suggest a continued improvement in 2025. “It’s pretty much good news all the way around,” said Robert Anderson of the National Center for Health Statistics at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which released the 2024 data.

Life expectancy, a fundamental measure of a population’s health, is an estimate of the average number of years a baby born in a given year might expect to live, given death rates at that time. For decades, U.S. life expectancy rose at least a little bit almost every year, thanks to medical advances and public health measures. It peaked in 2014, just shy of 79 years.

It was relatively flat for several years before plunging as COVID killed more than 1.2 million Americans. In 2021, life expectancy fell to just under 76 1/2 years. But it’s been rebounding since. In 2024, about 3.07 million U.S. residents died, about 18,000 fewer than the year before. And while the improvements in death rates appear to have benefited all ages, races and genders, there are still significant disparities between states, between counties within states and between different races and ethnic groups.

“Unfortunately, many people are still left behind,” one epidemiologist at the University of Washington tells NPR. In addition, U.S. life expectancy hasn’t rebounded nearly as quickly as it has in other countries, and the nation remains far behind other well-off countries, such as Australia, Spain and Japan.

FYI:

Heart disease remained the nation’s leading cause of death, but the death rate due to it dropped by about 3% for the second year in a row.

Deal Struck to Keep Government Open

The agreement includes advancing five spending bills and funding Homeland Security as lawmakers negotiate

President Donald Trump and Senate Democrats said Thursday an agreement has been reached to fund the federal government as tonight’s midnight deadline for a partial shutdown approaches. The deal will fund much of the government through the end of September and temporarily fund the Department of Homeland Security for two weeks while lawmakers negotiate provisions to rein in federal immigration agents.

Republicans had pushed to fund the department for several weeks, but Democrats insisted on a shorter-term measure. It is unclear how quickly the House can and will process those funding bills after the Senate passes them. A partial government shutdown could still happen early Saturday morning, since the House is in recess and not scheduled to return until Monday. Speaker Mike Johnson said Thursday it will take days to bring his members back into town, though Trump’s endorsement could help speed things along.

Unlike the shutdown standoff last fall over expiring health insurance subsidies, more Republicans acknowledged that what was unfolding in Minneapolis was an inflection point that could not be ignored. Democrats are demanding changes to how immigration officers carry out arrests and incidents are investigated, as well as mandating the use of body cameras and other reforms.

Dig:

The Hill explains why seven GOP senators voted against the bill to keep the government open.

Trump Is Suing the IRS, Treasury Dept.

He wants $10 billion over alleged tax return leaks

There’s never been a more litigious president. President Trump and the Trump Organization sued the Internal Revenue Service and Treasury Department for $10 billion, accusing them of an unauthorized leak of his tax returns during his first administration. Trump, who filed the suit alongside his sons, Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, is suing the agencies personally, not in his official capacity as president.

The suit claims former IRS employee Charles "Chaz" Littlejohn illegally obtained access to the tax returns and return information in 2019 and 2020 and both the IRS and Treasury failed to take precautionary measures to prevent the incident. Attorneys allege the agencies have caused “reputational and financial harm, public embarrassment, unfairly tarnished their business reputations, portrayed them in a false light, and negatively affected President Trump, and the other Plaintiffs’ public standing.”

A spokesman for Trump’s legal team told Fox News "a rogue, politically motivated" IRS employee disclosed private and confidential tax information involving Trump, his family and the Trump Organization to outlets, including the New York Times and ProPublica. The suit claims the disclosures were illegal and harmed millions by violating federal privacy laws. It’ll be interesting to see where this goes.