Life Expectancy and Work-Life Expectancy Calculator
Two numbers sit under every lost-earnings, lost-household-services and future-medical claim: how long the person is expected to live, and how many of those years they were expected to work. Enter age and sex (plus an optional occupation, planned retirement age and education level) and this calculator reads the official CDC United States Life Tables, 2023 to give remaining life expectancy and expected age at death, then applies a transparent, survival-adjusted method to estimate work-life expectancy, with sensitivity at retirement ages 62, 65, 67 and 70 and a paragraph you can paste into a demand letter. Built for plaintiff and defense attorneys, paralegals, legal nurse consultants and claims professionals who need a sourced first-pass figure before a forensic economist is retained.
Read this before you cite the work-life figure. The work-life expectancy here is a simplified estimate: each year up to retirement is counted only in proportion to the probability of surviving to it, using the general-population life table. Formal work-life tables used in litigation (for example the Skoog-Ciecka-Krueger Markov tables, published in the Journal of Forensic Economics) also account for the probability of leaving and re-entering the labor force, and vary by sex, education and initial labor-force status; they typically produce lower figures than this method. A forensic economist should be retained to produce the trial figure.
Sensitivity to retirement age
Work-life expectancy under the same method at retirement ages 62, 65, 67 and 70 (plus your planned age, if different). Years already past a retirement age count as zero.
Year-by-year survival table (age to retirement)
How to use the result
Remaining life expectancy is the ex column of the CDC life table at the person's current age: the average number of additional years lived by people of that age and sex in 2023 conditions. It is the horizon for lifetime medical costs, household services and (in wrongful death) the decedent's own expected lifespan. Cite the table by name and year, as the summary does.
Expected age at death is simply current age plus remaining life expectancy. It is an average, not a prediction for one person.
Years to retirement is the undiscounted, unadjusted gap between now and planned retirement; many demand letters stop here, and opposing economists will attack that. The survival-adjusted work-life figure is the more defensible starting point.
Work-life expectancy is the figure to multiply by annual earning capacity (then discount to present value) for lost earning capacity. Use the sensitivity table to show the range across retirement assumptions rather than a single number.
Case-specific health matters. If the injury or a pre-existing condition shortens life expectancy, the general-population table overstates the horizon. A treating physician or life care planner should supply a rated figure.
Occupation and education are recorded in the summary so the economist knows the starting point; published work-life tables show that labor-force participation differs materially by education and by sex, which this simplified method does not capture.
Formulas
a = current age (whole years), R = retirement age
l(x) = number alive at exact age x per 100,000 births (CDC life table, by sex)
e(x) = expectation of life at age x (CDC life table)
Remaining life expectancy: LE = e(a)
Expected age at death: a + e(a)
Years to retirement: Y = max(0, R − a)
Survival probability to age x: S(x) = l(x) ÷ l(a)
Work-life expectancy: WLE = Σ S(a + k) for k = 0 … Y − 1 (each working year counted with the probability of being alive at its start)
Primary estimate uses R = min(planned retirement, 67); the sensitivity table shows R = 62, 65, 67, 70 and the planned age.
Turn this into a full lost-earnings and damages workup
MedLegal AI's Damages Calculator combines work-life expectancy, earning capacity, fringe benefits, household services and future medical costs, discounts everything to present value and exports a dated PDF for the demand package. Free with a MedLegal AI account.
Sources and method
Life table. National Center for Health Statistics, United States Life Tables, 2023, National Vital Statistics Reports Vol. 74 No. 6 (July 2025), Tables 1 to 3 (total population, males, females), columns lx (number surviving to age x) and ex (expectation of life at age x) by single year of age, 0 to 100 and over. Report: nvsr74-06.pdf. Data files: Table01 (total), Table02 (males), Table03 (females). This is the most recent complete U.S. life table published as of October 2026; it is a period table (2023 death rates held constant), which is the standard basis for litigation life expectancy. Life expectancy at birth in that table: 78.4 years total, 75.8 male, 81.1 female.
Retirement age default (67). The Social Security full retirement age for anyone born in 1960 or later (Social Security Administration, ssa.gov). The 62/65/67/70 sensitivity ages are the earliest Social Security claiming age, the historical normal retirement age, the current full retirement age and the maximum delayed-credit age.
Work-life method. Survival-adjusted years to retirement, as shown in the formulas above. It ignores voluntary and involuntary exits from the labor force (disability, unemployment, caregiving, early retirement) and re-entries, so it is an upper-bound style estimate relative to Markov-process work-life tables such as Skoog, Ciecka and Krueger, Journal of Forensic Economics (most recently the 2019 and later editions). Education level and occupation are collected for the summary only.
Privacy. The calculation runs in your browser. Nothing you type is sent to a server except an anonymous usage count.
Not legal or financial advice. Verify with a qualified economist or life care planner. MedLegal AI.