Living Longer

LIVING LONGER- (1999) In ancient Greece, for example, life expectancy at birth was 20. When the Declaration of Independence was signed, life expectancy was still just 23; the median age was 16. Even as recently as 1900, most Americans died by age 47. In 1870, only 2.5% of all Americans made it to age 65. By 1990, that percentage had increased five-fold to 12.7%. Today, 31 million people are over 65 -- and the figures continue to grow, bolstered by advances in medicine...

Cancer rates from 1950 to 2000: To see the radiati...

I'm not sure what the rate of people living to age 65 is here in 2012 but I find it interesting that only 12.7% of Americans that I grew up with are still alive. I'm 63.

I found the following information at the Social Security Website:
 

Life Expectancy for Social Security

If we look at life expectancy statistics from the 1930s we might come to the conclusion that the Social Security program was designed in such a way that people would work for many years paying in taxes, but would not live long enough to collect benefits. Life expectancy at birth in 1930 was indeed only 58 for men and 62 for women, and the retirement age was 65. But life expectancy at birth in the early decades of the 20th century was low due mainly to high infant mortality, and someone who died as a child would never have worked and paid into Social Security. A more appropriate measure is probably life expectancy after attainment of adulthood. As Table 1 shows, the majority of Americans who made it to adulthood could expect to live to 65, and those who did live to 65 could look forward to collecting benefits for many years into the future. So we can observe that for men, for example, almost 54% of the them could expect to live to age 65 if they survived to age 21, and men who attained age 65 could expect to collect Social Security benefits for almost 13 years (and the numbers are even higher for women). Also, it should be noted that there were already 7.8 million Americans age 65 or older in 1935 (cf. Table 2), so there was a large and growing population of people who could receive Social Security. Indeed, the actuarial estimates used by the Committee on Economic Security (CES) in designing the Social Security program projected that there would be 8.3 million Americans age 65 or older by 1940 (when monthly benefits started). So Social Security was not designed in such a way that few people would collect the benefits. As Table 1 indicates, the average life expectancy at age 65 (i.e., the number of years a person could be expected to receive unreduced Social Security retirement benefits) has increased a modest 5 years (on average) since 1940. So, for example, men attaining 65 in 1990 can expect to live for 15.3 years compared to 12.7 years for men attaining 65 back in 1940. end quote from: http://www.ssa.gov/history/lifeexpect.html The following excerpt from the S.S. website seems to answer this best: "for example, almost 54% of the them could expect to live to age 65 if they survived to age 21, and men who attained age 65 could expect to collect Social Security benefits for almost 13 years." and ""men attaining 65 in 1990 can expect to live for 15.3 years compared to 12.7 years for men attaining 65 back in 1940" end  quote:    So, here is the trick I see now, If you are a man and live to be 65 you can look forward to  collecting Social Security for an average of 15.3 years now. Since this is true it might be important to do the math when deciding to collect Social Security (62,65, 70 etc.).    Since the average man who lives to collect Social Security  in the 1990s is gone by 80.3 years of age this is something to consider. Though you might live to 90 or 100 or more, especially with the medical science of this century and beyond, it might financially be important to consider the averages while first looking at how good your personal health is at 62 or 65 or 70.