Worklife expectancy is the number of years a person is expected to remain in the labor force from a given age, and it sets the horizon of a lost earnings projection. The economist reads it from published worklife tables for the person's age, sex, education, and labor force status, decides whether to apply it as a single figure or year by year, adjusts it only where the record supports an adjustment, and states the choice so that the other side can test it. This guide explains each of those decisions and where opposing reports go wrong.
Worklife expectancy is the expected number of additional years a person will spend in the labor force, employed or looking for work, over the rest of a lifetime. It is not an age. A person of forty with a worklife expectancy of twenty-two years is not expected to work to sixty-two and then stop; the figure is an average over many possible paths, some of which end early through illness, caregiving, or discouragement, and some of which run well past a conventional retirement age. The worklife expectancy method page describes the tables in more detail.
The figure matters because it bounds the loss. In a lost earnings and earning capacity claim, every year of projected earnings, and the fringe benefits that ride on them, runs only as far as the horizon. A horizon two years too long or two years too short moves the present value by a proportionate share of the future loss, which on a long projection is a large number, so the choice is examined closely on both sides.
Forensic economists read worklife expectancy from published tables built from the labor force transition data the Current Population Survey collects. The tables observe how often people of each age move between working, looking for work, and being out of the labor force, and from those transition rates compute the expected years of activity remaining at each age. The most widely used tables are stratified by sex, by highest level of education completed, and by whether the person was active or inactive in the labor force at the starting age.
The report identifies the table, its edition, and the row it read, because the tables are revised as new survey years are added and because the row depends on facts the record has to establish: the person's age on the valuation date, the education completed at that date, and the labor force status immediately before the event. A report that gives a worklife figure without naming the table and the row cannot be checked, and an opposing economist will say so.
Three facts fix the row. Age is the person's age at the valuation date, not at the event, because the projection starts at the valuation date and the past loss is tabulated separately. Education is the highest level completed, and the categories in the tables are broad, so a degree in progress at the time of the event is an argument about the record rather than a different row. Labor force status is the one most often disputed: a person who was working is read from the active table, a person who was between jobs is read from the active table if the record shows continued job search and from the inactive table if it does not, and the report says which and why.
Sex is a table variable because the underlying transition rates differ, and the report uses the row the tables provide. Where counsel prefers a projection that does not distinguish by sex, the economist can present the pooled figure alongside the sex-specific one and explain the difference, so the trier of fact sees what the choice does to the number.
The expected years can be applied in two ways. The simpler way treats the figure as a fixed horizon: earnings run at full value from the valuation date for that many years and then stop. The more complete way applies the probability of being active in each future year to that year's earnings, so the projection tapers rather than ending abruptly, and earnings in the later years are weighted by the smaller chance the person would still have been working. Both methods are published and both are used; they produce similar totals on a long horizon and can differ on a short one, and the report should say which it applied.
Whichever way the horizon is applied, it is applied to both streams. The but-for earnings and the post-event earnings run over the same horizon, and the fringe benefits that accrue with each stream stop when the stream stops, so the two sides of the comparison are measured over the same years. The lost earnings guide shows where the horizon enters the schedules.
The tables describe a population average, and the record can support a departure. A documented retirement plan, a mandatory retirement age in the occupation, a pension that vests at a stated age, or a medical opinion that the person will leave the labor force earlier than the population would are the usual examples. The economist can adopt the record's horizon, present the loss under both horizons, or apply the table and note the departure; what the economist does not do is move the horizon without a document behind the move.
A physically demanding occupation is the argument most often made against the table, and it cuts both ways: the tables already reflect the early exits of people in demanding jobs, and a specific finding about this person's body belongs to the medical witness, not the economist. A person's stated intention to work to seventy is evidence, and the report can present the loss under that assumption, but the report says it is the person's intention and shows the table figure beside it.
The recurring errors are a retirement age with no basis in the record in place of a table figure, a table applied to the wrong row because the labor force status was assumed rather than established, a horizon that runs earnings to life expectancy as if the person would never have stopped working, an edition of the tables that has been superseded, and a horizon applied to one stream but not the other. Each is visible on the face of the report, and each is a line of cross-examination. The rebuttal guide lists the questions to ask.
A horizon question is also a venue question. In a New Jersey wrongful death claim, for example, the decedent's earnings run over worklife while support and household services run over life expectancy, and a report that runs everything to one horizon has mixed the two. The report presents the horizons separately and states the source of each.
A sound report states the table, the edition, the row, the resulting expected years, the way the figure was applied, and any departure the record supported, and it shows the present value under the alternative horizon where the horizon is contested. That presentation lets the trier of fact see what the choice does to the number and lets counsel on either side test the choice against the record rather than against the economist's assertion. The earnings projection page describes the growth rate that runs over the horizon, and the present value page describes how the horizon and the discount rate interact.
Because people leave the labor force before they die. Worklife expectancy counts only the years a person is expected to be working or looking for work; life expectancy counts every remaining year. Earnings run over the first horizon, while support to survivors and household services run over the second.
The report can present the loss under that assumption, labeled as the person's stated intention, with the table figure shown beside it. The economist does not substitute the intention for the table without a document such as a pension election or an employer agreement that supports it.
Fringe benefits stop when the earnings stop, so they run over the worklife horizon. Household services do not depend on employment and run over life expectancy from the current life tables, and the report keeps the two horizons separate.
Request a consultation on How Worklife Expectancy Is Chosen in a Lost Earnings Claim or call (201) 343-0700. Plaintiff and defense counsel.