<p>Greybeard: I agree that the Justices are probably healthier than most. First of all, there’s a correlation between wealth/education and health; furthermore, while they have amazing jobs, they aren’t doing things that tend to lead to triple-artery bypasses at age 50. </p>
<p>Justice, Age at Confirmation, Median Expectancy afterwards
Ginsburg, 60, 23.11 years
Alito<em>, Breyer 56, 22.95 years
Stevens, 55, 23.76 years (damn, this guy never dies)
Kennedy, 52, 26.24 years
Souter, 51, 27.07 years (he runs 2 miles a day!)
Scalia, Roberts</em> 50, 27.92 years
Thomas, 43, 34.00
Rehnquist, 62, 18.31</p>
<p>*These guys, for those of you who have been chilling with Bin Ladin in a cave, were just sworn in and are pretty much the same age as they were.</p>
<p>Justice Current Age Median Age living to
Ginsburg 73, 83
Alito 56, 79
Breyer 68, 79
Stevens 86, 79
Kennedy 70, 78
Souter 67, 78
Scalia, 70, 78
Roberts 50, 78
Thomas 58, 77
Rehnquist 80 (how’s that for predictive ability?)</p>
<ul>
<li>all based on time when sworn in. Can re-do stats for current age.</li>
</ul>
<p>So half should be over, half under if statistically perfect. All but Stevens are younger than median so far - so it’s wait & see.</p>
<p>supreme court justices have secured employment compared to 99.99% of US citizens, shielded from criticism because you can’t make a bad decision. Any way a justice vote - right or wrong there’s always some wacky group that will support you, that’s exactly how they want you to vote. And wherever they go, they are revered. Why wouldn’t that lead to long life ?</p>
<p>its interesting how this went from amazement that a woman ( and her husband) who is 60+ would take on pregnancy and birth let alone parenting a newborn to the ramifications of court justices that are among the longest lived in teh US</p>
<p>Let’s not forget that the Supreme Court and Congress have one of the best health insurance plans in the US. I just wish they’d make it available to all of us… and while they’re at it, perhaps they should pass a law increasing the minimum wage whenever Congress increases its own salaries?</p>
<p>Of course their lives are great… my point was that, if you put people on the bench around age 60, chances are that they’ll live another 20 years anyway - that’s just from an actuarial table.</p>
<p>The flip side is that, depending on who you are and where you go, people will curse you out. Scalia once said that his wife gave him grief over his vote to allow flag-burning as protected Constitutional speech.</p>