I’ve seen posts saying, “This candidate is so old that the actuary tables say they won’t finish a second term.” That is not correct.
The Social Security Administration, which worries about this stuff, provides an actuarial table showing your expected remaining years, once you have reached a particular age.
It doesn’t include risk factors—whether you’re a smoker or overweight or have a family history of early death, or conversely, whether you are in top shape. These are the averages for everyone, separately reported for men and women.
Bernie, Joe, and Bloomberg are 78, 77, and 77 respectively. If you are a 78-year old man you can expect another 9.43 years. If you are a 70-year-old woman, you can expect another 16.57 years.
I think every one of the Democratic candidates who is older than me, is nonetheless in better shape. And if they get elected they will have the best medical care and physical protection the nation can provide.
This doesn’t tell us anything about likelihood of physical or mental decline in later years, or about either the advantages of long experience or possible disadvantages of jadedness. But it does say that worrying about any of the older candidates just keeling over is probably alarmist.
(Full disclosure: I’d rank each of these four higher if they were 20 years younger. I think one does lose a few feet off one’s fastball with age. But that’s a different concern than outright mortality.)