The life expectancy of Americans fell by 1.8 years in 2020, according to final official figures released on Wednesday, the worst drop in three-quarters of a century, driven in large part by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Life expectancy at birth was 77 years for the entire United States population last year, down from 78.8 years in 2019, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which had already released preliminary figures. in July.
COVID-19 was the third leading cause of death in the United States in 2020, with 350,000 deaths, behind cardiovascular diseases and cancer.
The difference between men and women deepened, going from 5.1 years in 2019 to 5.7 years in 2020 (74.2 years of life expectancy for them, against 79.9 for them in 2020).
Those figures come after the Census Bureau reported Tuesday that the United States recorded the lowest population growth in its history, due to falling migration, rising deaths due in part to the pandemic and falling population. birth rate.
Between July 1, 2020 and June 30, 2021, the population grew 0.1% (392,665 people), “the lowest rate since the nation was founded,” the agency said in a statement.
“Population growth has slowed for years due to lower birth rates and declining net international migration (the difference between the number of people entering and leaving the country), while death rates are increasing due to the aging of the population, ”said Kristie Wilder, a demographer in the population department of the Census Bureau.
“Now, with the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, this combination has caused a historically slow rate of growth,” he adds.
Texas vs New York
Despite the fact that immigration has decreased during those 12 months, in net numbers (244,622 people) it exceeded for the first time the so-called natural or vegetative growth (the difference between births and deaths), which stood at 148,043, the agency reported.
The pandemic has caused delays in calculating the numbers, so the Census Bureau’s population report used data from the 2020 census, which is done once a decade, along with other sources, such as birth records, deaths and immigration records.
Between 2020 and 2021, 33 states saw population increases and 17 states and the District of Columbia lost population, 11 of them more than 10,000 people, says the agency, which considers it “a historically large number.”
In a separate analysis, the study showed that Texas had the largest population increase at 1.1%, primarily due to national migration to the state and increased birth rates.
New York showed the largest drop (1.6%), mainly due to national migration, and Puerto Rico lost 0.5%.
According to the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), the number of immigrants (legal and illegal) in the United States reached 46.2 million in November this year, the highest in the country’s history. This represents 14.2% of the population, adds the CIS, a non-profit organization.
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