What is a mortality table?
A mortality table is not a life expectancy table. Rather, a mortality table such as the new Table 2000CM shows the number of survivors at each age given a specific starting population. In the case of Table 2000CM, the table shows the number of survivors at each age from 0 to 110, given a starting population of 100,000. For example, at age 80 there are 50,819 survivors and at age 90 there are 18,472 survivors. In comparison, its predecessor Table 90CM shows 47,084 survivors at age 80 and 17,046 at age 90. What this means is that Table 2000CM predicts that more people out of an original population of 100,000 will survive to reach each age than Table 90CM predicts. This pattern holds true except at very old ages of 102 and higher, where Table 90CM predicts more survivors than Table 2000CM. That is, at most starting ages, Table 2000CM predicts that people will live longer than Table 90CM predicts. Consequently, deductions are lower under Table 2000CM than under Table 90CM, except for benef
