Down two years, then most of the way back

The message

U.S. life expectancy dropped sharply in 2020 and 2021, and by 2023 it had recovered most, but not all, of the loss. The design has to show both the dip and the fact that the line doesn't quite get back to where it started.

Why a line, and why the axis doesn't start at zero

Five yearly values of one measure over time is the textbook case for a line chart. The eye follows the slope down and back up.

Bar charts must start at zero, because the bar's length is the value. A line chart encodes position, so it can start elsewhere when zero would flatten the story. Here, a zero baseline would squeeze a two-year swing into a line that looks dead straight. A two-year drop in national life expectancy is large in health terms, and the chart should let readers see it. The axis runs from 76 to 79, the gridlines are labeled, and every point carries its exact value, so nothing is hidden.

Labels instead of a legend

There is one series, so there is no legend. Each point is labeled directly with its value, placed above or below the dot so the labels don't collide with the line. A tooltip would hide those numbers behind a hover that doesn't exist on paper or in a shared image.

The big number

The top-right corner shows 78.4 in large type. Big standalone numbers are one of the oldest infographic devices, and they work when the number is the answer to the headline. Here it tells readers where things stand now before they look at the path. We gave it the same accent color as the line so the two read as one idea.

What we left out

The CDC briefs break life expectancy down by sex, race and Hispanic origin, and by age. Those breakdowns are important, and they would make a different infographic. Adding six more lines here would bury the single recovery story under a legend. If you need the breakdown, small multiples (one small chart per group, same axes) would be our pick.

A note on years

Each year's figure comes from the final mortality data published about a year later. Figures can be revised, so cite the edition you used.