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In A Nutshell
- A gap of almost 8 years. In the CDC’s latest state life tables, for 2022, Hawaii had the highest life expectancy at birth, 80.0 years, and West Virginia the lowest, 72.2 years, the National Center for Health Statistics reported.
- The South sits at the bottom. Mississippi, Kentucky, Louisiana, Alabama, Tennessee and Oklahoma all came in under 74 years.
- Most states bounced back. Life expectancy rose in 48 states and Washington, D.C., between 2021 and 2022, after the steep drops of the pandemic years.
- Women live longer everywhere. The gap between women and men ranged from 3.6 years in Utah to 6.9 years in New Mexico.
Two babies born on the same day in 2022, one in Honolulu and one in Charleston, West Virginia, started life with very different odds. Based on the death rates of that year, the baby in Hawaii could expect to live to about 80. The baby in West Virginia, to about 72.
That nearly eight-year difference comes from the latest state-by-state life tables from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The numbers show where Americans live longest, where they die youngest, and how unevenly the country has recovered from the pandemic. Here is how the states compare, and what the figures do and do not mean.
Which States Have The Longest Life Expectancy?
Hawaii, followed by a cluster of Northeastern states.
According to the CDC’s U.S. State Life Tables for 2022, the top five states for life expectancy at birth were:
- Hawaii: 80.0 years
- Massachusetts: 79.8 years
- New Jersey: 79.6 years
- New York: 79.5 years
- Connecticut: 79.4 years
Hawaii also led for people who reach 65. A 65-year-old there could expect about 20.5 more years of life.
Which States Have The Shortest?
Mostly states in the South and Appalachia.
At the other end of the list, the CDC reported:
- Oklahoma, Tennessee, Alabama and Louisiana: 73.8 years
- Kentucky: 73.6 years
- Mississippi: 72.6 years
- West Virginia: 72.2 years
West Virginia also had the lowest life expectancy at 65, about 16.6 more years, nearly four years less than in Hawaii.
Why Do The Numbers Vary So Much?
Researchers point to income, education and health risks that cluster by region.
Life expectancy is a summary of how many people die, and at what ages, in a given year. Lower life expectancy is more common among low-income populations and people with less education, according to the NCHS, and those patterns are not spread evenly across the map. Deaths in younger adults also pull averages down sharply. StudyFinds has reported that death rates for Americans ages 25 to 44 jumped 71% in just over a decade.
Sex matters in every state. Women outlived men everywhere, by 3.6 years in Utah and by as much as 6.9 years in New Mexico.
Is Life Expectancy Getting Better?
Yes, after a sharp drop during the pandemic.
In the CDC’s 2021 tables, Hawaii stood at 79.9 years and Mississippi at just 70.9, a gap of nine years. By 2022, life expectancy had risen in 48 states and D.C., with an overall gain of 1.1 years, and the gap at the extremes had narrowed. National figures show the recovery continued: life expectancy for the whole country rose from 77.5 years in 2022 to 78.4 years in 2023.
A life expectancy figure is not a prediction for any one person. It describes the death rates of a single year, and it can change as those rates change. But the map still says something real. Where an American is born remains tied to how long he or she is likely to live, and the difference between the top and bottom states is still close to eight years.
