Here is a headline that does not usually make the front of a business section. Americans are living longer than they ever have. Life expectancy reached a record 79 years in 2024, up from 78.4 in 2023, and past the old high of 78.9 set in 2014.
It took a decade to get back to that 2014 mark and then clear it. The line is moving in the right direction again.
Two diseases, decades of grinding progress
The gains are not mysterious. They come from the two illnesses that used to do most of the killing.
Heart-disease death rates have fallen 39% since 2000. Cancer death rates have fallen 31% over the same period. Those are not rounding errors. That is millions of birthdays.
| The long climb | Reading |
|---|---|
| Life expectancy, 2014 (old high) | 78.9 years |
| Life expectancy, 2023 | 78.4 years |
| Life expectancy, 2024 (record) | 79.0 years |
| Heart-disease death rate vs 2000 | −39% |
| Cancer death rate vs 2000 | −31% |
Three things get most of the credit. Statins, which lower cholesterol, have been quietly saving lives for a generation. Immunotherapies taught the immune system to attack tumors. And the GLP-1 drugs — the weight-loss and diabetes medicines everyone now has an opinion about — are pulling weight, blood sugar and blood pressure down together.
Now the part nobody celebrates
Life expectancy at birth is an average, and averages hide the interesting tail. Someone who reaches 65 in decent health has a very reasonable shot at 90. For a married couple, the odds that at least one of them sees 90 are better still.
Most retirement plans we inherit were built to run out somewhere around 85. That was a defensible assumption once. It is getting less defensible every year the data improves.
Ten extra years is not a small adjustment. It is roughly a third more retirement to pay for, and it lands at the end, when a portfolio has already been drawn down and inflation has had thirty years to work.
What actually changes
Three things, and none of them are dramatic.
First, the withdrawal rate. A plan that spends 5% a year is a very different animal over thirty-five years than over twenty. The safe number goes down as the timeline goes up.
Second, the mix. The instinct at 65 is to sell the stocks and buy the bonds. Over a possible thirty-five-year horizon, that instinct trades one risk for a worse one. Inflation does not retire when you do.
Third, the long-term care conversation. More years is a gift. More years of needing help with daily activities is an expense, and it is the single largest uninsured risk most retirees carry.
There is a fourth item, and it is the least financial of the four. A plan for thirty-five years has to include something to do with them. Retirees who keep working part-time, volunteering, or minding grandchildren tend to spend differently than the models assume, and they tend to draw down more slowly early on.
That matters for the math. The first ten years of retirement do most of the damage or most of the good, because money withdrawn early never gets the chance to compound back.
We would rather have this problem than the alternative. But it is a real problem, and the honest response is to plan for the long version of your life instead of the convenient one. Bring your statement, and we will run the numbers to 95 and see what it looks like.