POPULATION AND DEVELOPMENT REVIEW 32(3): 557–565 (SEPTEMBER 2006) 557 DATA AND PERSPECTIVES Black Mortality at Very Old Ages in Official US Life Tables: A Skeptical Appraisal SAMUEL H. PRESTON IRMA T. ELO ON 19 APRIL 2006, the National Center for Health Statistics released official life tables for the United States for the year 2003 (Arias 2006). The tables demonstrated that American longevity continued to advance. The largest increase in life expectancy at birth occurred for black females, who gained 0.5 years relative to the official life table of 2002. Each of the other race/sex groups gained 0.2 years. The tables are constructed with a high level of pro- fessional expertise using standard actuarial methods (Anderson 1999). One surprising feature of these tables is that the percentage of black females expected to reach age 100 was very high, 4 percent. In fact, accord- ing to the life tables, black females have a higher probability of surviving from birth to age 100 than do white females, .040 versus .031. A similar advantage appears for black men relative to white men, .017 versus .011. The explanation for this apparent anomaly is not to be found in un- usually low mortality among blacks in childhood, middle age, or even most of the older ages. White women have a 30 percent higher probability of reaching age 85 than black women, and white men have a 61 percent higher chance of reaching age 85 than black men. The exceptionally low mortality among blacks is confined to the ages above 85 years. Because a relatively high fraction of blacks are expected to reach age 85 according to mortality conditions of 2003 (35 percent of females and 19 percent of males), what happens above that age has an important influence on summary measures of mortality. In fact, sharply improved mortality above age 85 between 2002 and 2003 accounts for slightly over half of the unusually large gain in life expectancy at birth for black females between these years. 1