U.S. Life Expectancy Plunged in 2020, Especially for Black and Hispanic Americans

The 18-month drop, the steepest decline since World War II, was fueled by the coronavirus pandemic.

New federal data draws one of the starkest illustrations to date of how the coronavirus pandemic has disproportionately affected Hispanic and Black Americans, showing that they suffered a far steeper drop in life expectancy in 2020 than white Americans. Overall, life expectancy in the United States fell by a year and a half, a federal report said on Wednesday, a decline largely attributed to the pandemic that has killed more than 600,000 Americans. It was the steepest decline in the United States since World War II.