5 Worst States for Working-Age Death Increases in July

By Allison Bell

Slideshow September 12, 2022 at 03:48 PM

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Early government mortality numbers show that the number of U.S. deaths has stayed very high this summer, both for members of the general population and for working-age people. For all U.S. residents, for the period from July 3 through Aug. 27, the number of deaths recorded in the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's FluView reports was 426,881, according to the report released Friday, which included data sent to the CDC by Sept. 3. The "all cause" total for the general population was down just 0.8% from the total for the comparable period in 2021, and it was 22% higher than the total for the comparable period in 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic began. For U.S. residents ages 25 through 64, the all-cause death total during that same period was 113,665, according to early, weighted data in the CDC's Weekly Counts of Deaths by Jurisdiction and Age reports, as of Sept. 8. For working-age people, the number of deaths was 8.7% lower than the number recorded in the comparable period last year, but still 9.8% higher than in 2019. Before the COVID-19 pandemic came to public attention in the United States, in early 2020, national mortality changes of more than 1% were unusual. For a look at the five states with the biggest percentage increases in the working-age death count, see the gallery above. For data for all 50 states and the District of Columbia, see the chart below.

What It Means

Your clients may be tired of thinking about masks and COVID-19, but the increase in the U.S. death rate caused by COVID-19, efforts to fight the pandemic, pandemic-related pressure on the health care system, and other factors may continue to be high enough to throw off life expectancy forecasts for your clients. They still have to think about building a life expectancy uncertainty factor into life insurance planning, retirement income planning and other mortality-related arrangements.

Data Weaknesses

States are in charge of filing death data, and the completeness and accuracy of the data filed by any given state in a given week may vary widely. We compensated for data filing lags for the general population by using the CDC FluView report data released in week 35 for 2019, 2021 and 2022. For the numbers for the working-age population, we compensated by using the CDC's "weighted data." The weighted numbers include the CDC's efforts to adjust for data filing delays.

The States

For July — a month with data that's starting to firm up — the change in the number of deaths of people ages 25 through 64 between 2019 and this year ranged from a decrease of 28.5%, in Iowa, to an increase of 87.3%. An 87.3% increase means that the number of total deaths of working-age people in that state in July was almost twice as high as it was in July 2019.

	Number of deaths			Change from…
	July 2019	July 2021	July 2022	July 2019	July 2021
Alabama	1,095	1,312	1,200	9.6%	-8.5%
Alaska	90	137	124	37.8%	-9.5%
Arizona	1,180	1,477	1,449	22.8%	-1.9%
Arkansas	600	887	671	11.8%	-24.4%
California	4,661	5,743	5,472	17.4%	-4.7%
Colorado	806	922	918	13.9%	-0.4%
Connecticut	498	593	570	14.5%	-3.9%
Delaware	145	160	184	26.9%	15.0%
District of Columbia	139	187	163	17.3%	-12.8%
Florida	3,604	4,930	3,935	9.2%	-20.2%
Georgia	1,811	2,187	1,899	4.9%	-13.2%
Hawaii	180	249	164	-8.9%	-34.1%
Idaho	187	300	279	49.2%	-7.0%
Illinois	1,805	2,131	1,984	9.9%	-6.9%
Indiana	1,238	1,437	1,234	-0.3%	-14.1%
Iowa	499	495	357	-28.5%	-27.9%
Kansas	446	546	454	1.8%	-16.8%
Kentucky	1,024	1,205	1,036	1.2%	-14.0%
Louisiana	1,017	1,375	946	-7.0%	-31.2%
Maine	213	258	255	19.7%	-1.2%
Maryland	1,001	1,012	926	-7.5%	-8.5%
Massachusetts	973	996	1,015	4.3%	1.9%
Michigan	1,717	1,824	1,924	12.1%	5.5%
Minnesota	669	785	644	-3.7%	-18.0%
Mississippi	689	919	744	8.0%	-19.0%
Missouri	1,253	1,637	1,149	-8.3%	-29.8%
Montana	142	190	195	37.3%	2.6%
Nebraska	257	285	265	3.1%	-7.0%
Nevada	521	877	639	22.6%	-27.1%
New Hampshire	174	176	207	19.0%	17.6%
New Jersey	1,233	1,301	1,254	1.7%	-3.6%
New Mexico	447	514	433	-3.1%	-15.8%
New York	1,522	1,704	1,674	10.0%	-1.8%
New York City	1,008	1,107	1,202	19.2%	8.6%
North Carolina	1,781	2,199	1,959	10.0%	-10.9%
North Dakota	98	97	98	0.0%	1.0%
Ohio	2,264	2,466	2,359	4.2%	-4.3%
Oklahoma	752	938	878	16.8%	-6.4%
Oregon	588	727	681	15.8%	-6.3%
Pennsylvania	2,176	2,351	2,266	4.1%	-3.6%
Puerto Rico	525	493	592	12.8%	20.1%
Rhode Island	151	133	143	-5.3%	7.5%
South Carolina	982	1,205	1,161	18.2%	-3.7%
South Dakota	97	162	124	27.8%	-23.5%
Tennessee	1,581	1,851	1,684	6.5%	-9.0%
Texas	4,123	5,242	4,870	18.1%	-7.1%
United States	51,654	62,102	56,642	9.7%	-8.8%
Utah	348	460	375	7.8%	-18.5%
Vermont	55	100	103	87.3%	3.0%
Virginia	1,201	1,432	1,398	16.4%	-2.4%
Washington	970	1,225	1,198	23.5%	-2.2%
West Virginia	439	492	579	31.9%	17.7%
Wisconsin	806	921	921	14.3%	0.0%
Wyoming	84	86	69	-17.9%	-19.8%
TOTAL	103,519	124,540	113,665	9.8%	-8.7%
MEDIAN				10.0%	-7.0%