Back in May, Charting Retirement estimated the odds of Joe Biden or Donald Trump surviving a four-year U.S. presidential term. In this context, “survival” meant not only avoiding death but also illnesses that would make it all but impossible to serve out their term. These illnesses included life-threatening cancer, acute myocardial infarction, stroke and Alzheimer’s.
This week, we update that chart to reflect the odds for Kamala Harris, rather than Mr. Biden. We find there is about a 14-per-cent chance that Ms. Harris would not survive until the end of the next four-year term. For Mr. Trump, the chance of not surviving the entire four years is a sobering 38 per cent.
The mortality rates used to produce this chart are taken from the Society of Actuaries as they apply to white-collar males and females in the United States. Morbidity rates come from Canadian sources, but they appear to offer the best data available for this comparison. Given that the World Health Organization and the Globocan (Global Cancer Authority) database show that the incidence of cancer, heart attack and Alzheimer’s are lower in Canada than the U.S., the candidates’ true chances of survival might be lower yet.
Frederick Vettese is former chief actuary of Morneau Shepell and author of the PERC retirement calculator (perc-pro.ca)