“The problem is that so many people feel like the economy has left them behind. What we have to do is, we have to say, ‘look, there’s record high GDP and stock market prices, you know what else there are record highs [of]? Suicides, drug overdoses, depression, anxiety.’ It’s gotten so bad that American life expectancy has declined for the last three years.”

— Businessman Andrew Yang

Life expectancy for Americans has steadily declined over two of the last three years, from 78.9 years in 2014 to 78.6 years in 2017, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (Data for 2018 are not publicly available) That’s the first decline over a three-year stretch in a century.

Suicides and fatal drug overdoses have contributed to the decline of life expectancy, as Yang claims, but CDC also cites chronic liver disease as a contributing factor.