New Yorkers are living longer and about to get louder.
Officials bragged Thursday that New York City’s average life expectancy hit a record 83.2 years in 2024 — as they rolled out an $800,000 ad campaign against ageism.
The Adams administration credited the increase to its HealthyNYC Plan, which aimed to educate New Yorkers about healthy living. They noted the plan surpassed the city’s increased life expectancy goal six years early.
“When our administration came into office, the COVID-19 pandemic was still having major impacts on the health of our city,” read a statement from Mayor Eric Adams.
“But we focused our energy on public health, and four years later, we are showing how our strategies and commitments are paying off.”
The 2024 city life expectancy of 83.2 beat the old record of 82.6 set in 2019 — and is much higher than the life expectancy of 78 that the city sunk to in 2020 because of deaths to COVID-19 at the height of the pandemic.
The announcement about the life expectancy bump came the same day as the city’s anti-ageism push.
Adams — who is on a tax-payer funded trip to Uzbekistan during his penultimate month in office — was unable to make an anti-agism event in Lower Manhattan Thursday morning, hosted by the city’s Department of Aging.
The event celebrated the launch of a new ad campaign directing New Yorkers to confront each other over ageism.
NYC Aging Commissioner Lorraine Cortés-Vázquez led a crowd of more than 100 older New Yorkers in a pledge to call out ageist remarks, such as, “you look too good for your age,” or “I can’t believe you’re still doing that.”
“If I hear ageism, if I see ageism, I’m going to interrupt it,” Cortés-Vázquez asked the seniors crammed into the City Store at 1 Centre Street to pledge. “Everytime we call it out, we educate people.”
Her department’s splashy $800,000 campaign — running on TV, subways, buses and social media — urges New Yorkers of any age to “see it, name it, and stop it” when it comes to age-based insults.
“When you label me too old instead of seeing what I can achieve, that’s ageism,” a poster for the ad campaign showing an elderly man boxing read.
A campaign video showed old people doing well and being hugged by younger people.
“It won’t stop on its own. It stops when we call it out. Stop the labels,” the PSA’s announcer said.
Cortés-Vázquez said her department worked with the city’s Department of Youth and Community Development to make sure they reach young people with the campaign message too.
It can be offensive for young people to hear remarks such as, “you don’t have enough experience,” Cortés-Vázquez said.
“Regardless of age, ageism harms us, ageism harms the city, ageism harms the society,” she said.
But with the city’s senior population larger than the school-age population since 2010 — and projected to comprise one in five New Yorkers by 2040 — expect to see more of the steely, gray haired New Yorkers standing their ground.
