If I am preparing a report on lost earnings in a wrongful death litigation matter, I will need to know what the expected remaining life would have been for the deceased subject involved with the lost earnings claim. I will use authoritative tables from government and private research sources to make the life expectancy determination.
Recently, I was perusing the internet searching for other sources for life expectancy tables and came across a website entitled USA LifeExpectancy. The site caught my eye because of the many statistics it had on living long in America. For example, the site indicates the state where white American males live, on average, the longest is the District of Columbia, at 82.07 years (okay, I know D.C. is not technically a state). Who would have thought with all of the stresses of political debate and argument going on in Washington D.C. that it would be conducive to long lives for white American males.
The state with the worst life expectancy statistic for white American males is West Virginia at 72.64 years.
I was curious how my own state, Arizona, stacked up to the other states in the site’s analysis. Arizona’s white American males have an average life expectancy of 77.31 years. It ranked 20th out of 51 USA states (including the District of Columbia) analyzed.
USA LifeExpectancy also showed those states where white American females lived the longest – and where they had the shortest life expectancy among the US states. Here again, they live longest in D.C. at 86.65 years and have the shortest life span in the state of Michigan at 77.05 years. In Arizona, a white American female lives an average of 82.26 years, with the state ranking 14 out of 51 states.
USA LifeExpectancy also showed life expectancy averages for males and females classified as Asian American, Hispanic American, African American and Native American. A comparison of the states where these races have the longest average life expectancy years and those with the shortest is shown below in Table 1. I’ve also shown the average life expectancy years for Arizona in Table 2.
The USA LifeExpectancy website does not indicate why some states have higher life expectancies than others. I have not verified the accuracy of the website’s statistical data. However, I do find the information presented at the website to be interesting. As Star Trek’s Spock would say, “Live long and prosper.”
By Don Bays, CPA, ABV, CVA, CFF