New data out this week from the CDC made for slightly sobering reading, as estimates for life expectancy at birth fell across every state in the country. At the national level, US life expectancy dropped by 1.8 years, with the pandemic and an increase in drug overdoses responsible for much of the decline.
We dove into the new data, finding a pretty wide variation in life expectancy between states, which we've visualized above against per capita personal income.
There's a somewhat depressing — but slightly unsurprising — correlation between higher incomes and longer life expectancy at the state-level.
Surf's up
Although that correlation was fairly clear across the 50 states, there were a few outliers that were of particular interest. New York, for example, ranked 3rd on personal income, yet sits at just 15th on life expectancy. Hawaii, conversely, ranked 22nd out of the 50 states on per capita personal income, but came top of the life expectancy charts. A typical baby born today in Hawaii is expected to live until the ripe old age of almost 81 — which is almost 4 years longer than the national average of 77. Good weather, good people and good surf (?) seem to be the secret to a longer life.
Dig deeper: check out this interactive map of the state-level life expectancy data.
