New Life Expectancy Data Reveals Surprising Impact on Retirement Plans
What’s Changed About Life Expectancy—and Why It Matters
People are living longer nowadays. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the average life expectancy was 75.8 years for males, 81.1 years for females, and the average for both sexes is 78.4 years in 2023.1 But these averages don’t tell the whole story. Medical advances mean more people are living into their late 80s and 90s than ever before.2
A longer life means more years in retirement, and that shift has real consequences on retirement planning. Some people face shorter retirements due to health issues, while others may need their money to last far longer. Planning for your retirement is less about guessing an exact life expectancy and more about being prepared for however long you live.
Why Old Retirement Assumptions No Longer Hold
For a long time, retirement planning had a fairly standard formula: work for 40 years, retire, and expect 15 to 20 years of post-work life. That model made sense when pensions were common an
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