In Memory of President Jimmy Carter, Current Holder of Longest-Lived U.S. President
Some interesting mortality patterns of the U.S. Presidents, and how high will it go?
Today, January 9, 2025, is the National Day of Mourning for Jimmy Carter. I have nothing special to say about Carter as President or person (I was born in 1974, and lived in Georgia up to 1986, so I got to hear plenty about Carter as a little kid.)
But as a life actuary, I certainly have something to say about Carter making it to age 100, and being the current holder making it to the oldest age at death as a U.S. President.
There is a Wikipedia article on U.S. Presidents by age: List of presidents of the United States by age
Here is a nice graphical representation of when each lived (or is still living):
I like how they show Cleveland’s two terms, and we’ll soon get something similar for Trump. But I won’t count Cleveland twice - he’s one guy. I will ignore the still-living.
But I want to point out something in particular: the oddly short lives of the 19th-century Presidents, while we have the long-lived Founders and the longer lives of the modern Presidents.
Let’s go to the ranking tables!
Longest-lived Presidents (excluding currently living Presidents)
I don’t want to include Clinton, Bush, Biden, or Trump. (Obama isn’t that old, but I’ll have something to say about him soon enough, because there’s something special about him compared to the other four, and it’s not his race. No, not where he was born, either.)
A few remarks:
From what I can tell, digging through the records, Jimmy Carter had been cancer-free when his family announced he was doing at-home hospice a few years back. No official cause of death was announced, and “old age” is not allowed as an ICD-10 code, so… I have no idea. Frankly, at age 100, it hardly matters. We’re not trying to reduce death rates at that age right now.
Yes, three of the Founding Fathers are among our longest-lived Presidents. There is a long stretch from Madison (4th President, term ended in 1817) to the next long-lived President, Hoover, who became president in 1929.
John Adams had been the longest-lived President, ever, until exceeded by Reagan in 2001, who was later exceeded by Ford, HW Bush, and Carter.
Yes, all Presidents number 37 - 41 are in the top 10. (Presidents 42 and after are all alive.)
Shortest-lived Presidents (including the assassinations)
Yes, there were 4 sitting Presidents who were assassinated.
James K. Polk has the (currently) unenviable position of having died the youngest of a natural cause, having the shortest post-Presidency, and having a kick-ass TMBG song about him:
Well, it’s a consolation.
He wasn’t the only President to die of cholera, by the way.
Zachary Taylor, his successor, seems to have died of a cholera-like disease, dying in office, at the grand age of 65.6 years old. He did not get in the lowest age ranks, as a lot of the 19th century Presidents were short-lived.
Taylor wasn’t even the first President to die (of disease) in office!
William Henry Harrison barely managed to warm the seat before dying of typhoid fever:
Harrison had been physically worn down by many persistent office seekers and a demanding social schedule.[108] On Wednesday, March 24, 1841, Harrison took his daily morning walk to local markets, without a coat or hat. Despite being caught in a sudden rainstorm, he did not change his wet clothes upon return to the White House.[120] On Friday, March 26, Harrison became ill with cold-like symptoms and sent for his doctor, Thomas Miller, though he told the doctor he felt better after having taken medication for "fatigue and mental anxiety".
….
In the evening of Saturday, April 3, Harrison developed severe diarrhea and became delirious, and at 8:30 p.m. he uttered his last words, to his attending doctor, assumed to be for Vice President John Tyler:[120] "Sir, I wish you to understand the true principles of the government. I wish them carried out. I ask nothing more."[123] Harrison died at 12:30 a.m. on April 4, 1841, Palm Sunday, nine days after becoming ill and exactly one month after taking the oath of office;[120] he was the first president to die in office.
….
The prevailing theory at the time was that his illness had been caused by the bad weather at his inauguration three weeks earlier.[126] Jane McHugh and Philip A. Mackowiak did an analysis in Clinical Infectious Diseases (2014), examining Miller's notes and records showing that the White House water supply was downstream of public sewage, and they concluded that he likely died of septic shock due to "enteric fever" (typhoid or paratyphoid fever).
UPDATE: Spreadsheet
On the Shape of Death Changing During the Life of the Nation
What’s interesting is that three of the early leaders lived to ages fairly common for current lifetimes, but that lives in the 19th century were shortened by infectious disease (especially as Washington, D.C. was a literal tropical swamp), stroke and cancer, and heart disease. It wasn’t until the 20th century that we saw long lives again.
Last year, I did a post on the chances of living to age 100:
While it’s great that we had a president make it to age 100, it seems to me far more impressive that John Adams made it to age 90 than that a man of privilege in the 21st century made it this far.
Especially if he doesn’t smoke.
Because other than the conquering of infectious diseases to reduce the death of Presidents from the literal swamps of Washington, many of the deaths of U.S. Presidents can be seen to be from their use of tobacco:
Heart disease and stroke featured very strongly among the Presidential deaths, especially all those 19th-century deaths of men who died in their 60s. General and then President Grant famously was dying of throat cancer due to his cigar-smoking habit when Twain convinced him to write his autobiography. LBJ (linked above) had his first heart attack when he was 46.
I mentioned Obama was the lone man out in the currently living Presidents - he’s the only one of the group who has been a smoker. (Yes, I know about Clinton and the cigars… but … do I really need to go there? He did not seem like a regular smoker.)
I hope Obama gets regularly screened for lung cancer and heart disease. Smoking does a real number on the body. If he did quit for good, he has a good chance for the damage to be repaired over the decades and have as long a life as any of them.
I expect our current crop of living Presidents to be up in that top table eventually. Long live those living Presidents! And RIP, President Carter!