5 Worst States for Working-Age Deaths in August

The number of deaths of working-age Americans was lower in August than in August 2021, but it was still much higher than it was in August 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic began. Death figures for the period from July 31 through Aug. 27 are just starting to firm up. But very early figures show that at least 53,655 U.S. residents ages 25 through 64 died from COVID-19 and all other causes during that four-week period. The number of deaths was down sharply from 77,847 in August 2021, but it was still up 6.1% from the total of 50,590 for August 2019. For a look at the five states with the biggest percentage increases in the working-age death count in August, see the gallery above. For data for all 50 states and the District of Columbia, see the charts below. One chart shows summary data for people of all ages throughout the United States. The other chart shows jurisdiction-by-jurisdiction data for people in the 25-64 age group.

What It Means

COVID-19 may have loosened its grip on U.S. hospitals this summer, but the overall U.S. death rate for working-age Americans may continue to be high enough to throw off the mortality assumptions of life insurance and annuity actuaries. The excess death rate may also be high enough, and unpredictable enough, to cause headaches for retirement planners.

The General Population

For the U.S. population as a whole, all-cause mortality amounted to at least 221,794 in August. That was down from 247,865 in August 2021, but it was up 20% from the total of 184,873 for August 2019.

The Numbers

The U.S. federal government compiles many different types of death reports. Many states take four weeks to begin sending in anything resembling complete death statistics, and some may take months to provide complete death data. The numbers come mainly from a U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention database that provides weekly counts of deaths by jurisdiction and age. We used the "predicted" numbers, or numbers adjusted to reflect the CDC's estimates of how complete, or incomplete, a given state's numbers are. The CDC also posts weekly counts of deaths for people of all ages by state and select causes. States take longer to fill in the death-by-cause data than the death-by-age data, and the cause of death for 6.4% of the August deaths in that table is still unclear. The very early, incomplete numbers suggest that physicians attributed a smaller percentage of the deaths than in 2019 to influenza, or to causes of pneumonia other than COVID-19, and at least 5% more to kidney disease, strokes and other forms of cerebrovascular disease, and COVID-19. COVID-19 killed some people directly. In other cases, people might have died from strokes, kidney conditions or conditions originally caused by COVID-19; from the effects of the pandemic and pandemic lockdowns on hospitals; or because of the harm COVID-19 lockdowns did to people's physical or emotional health. In still other cases, death rates from conditions other than COVID-19 might have increased or decreased due to factors unrelated to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Context

The 6.1% increase in the number of working-age U.S. deaths between August 2019 and August 2022 is smaller than the 9.8% increase between July 2019 and August 2022, but it's still very large by historic standards. In the past 75 years, no infectious disease other than COVID-19 has caused as much of an increase in mortality. In 1968, the infamous Hong Kong flu pandemic burned itself into the survivors' memories by increasing the number of U.S. deaths by about 100,000, or 5% from a baseline of about 1.9 million per year. From 1988 through 1995, HIV caused about 42,000 people per year to die from AIDS, and it increased the number of U.S. deaths by about 2% from a baseline of about 2.2 million deaths per year.

State Data

In August, according to the preliminary numbers, the change in the number of deaths, from all causes, affecting working-age people ranged from a decrease of about 27%, in South Dakota, up to an increase of more than 70%, in one hard-hit state in the Northeast, with a median of about 8.1%.