Though life expectancy at birth is 78 years old in the United States, Americans would like to live longer than that. A broad majority of adults (76%) say they would want to live until they’re at least 80. That includes 29% who would like to reach 100 and join the rapidly growing ranks of centenarians. On average, Americans want to live to be 91 years old.

Pew Research Center conducted this research as part of an ongoing effort to study how the United States is changing socially and demographically and how the public is reacting to these changes.

For this analysis, we surveyed 8,750 adults from Sept. 2 to 8, 2025. Everyone who took part is a member of the Center’s American Trends Panel. The survey represents the views of the full U.S. adult population.

Here are the survey questions used for this analysis, the detailed responses and the survey methodology.