dr. michael o'grady, and dr. edward sondik. good morning. 65% of americans live to the age 65 in 1965. today, it is 84%. what does this tell you about the longevity of americans and the impact it has on our society? guest: the longevity has been going up since 1900. if you look at the string of data that we have, you can see that it continues to improve. i think this figure is particularly important, not only in the probability, the likelihood of living to age 65, but also the probability of living to age 85. it is probably dead figure that is the most surprising. somebody born in -- that figure that is most surprising. somebody born in 1940 had a one in 10 chance, and a baby born today has almost a 40% chance of living to 85. the good part of that is life. there are a lot of policy issues that come along with that. we have a population whose demographics are changing rapidly. host: as we look to some other figures, this is the leading causes of death around the country. heart disease is on the decline. stroke is on the decline. chronic lung disease has increased. cancer has been prett

dr. michael o'grady, and dr. edward sondik. good morning. 65% of americans live to the age 65 in 1965. today, it is 84%. what does this tell you about the longevity of americans and the impact it has on our society? guest: the longevity has been going up since 1900. if you look at the string of data that we have, you can see that it continues to improve. i think this figure is particularly important, not only in the probability, the likelihood of living to age 65, but also the probability of living to age 85. it is probably dead figure that is the most surprising. somebody born in -- that figure that is most surprising. somebody born in 1940 had a one in 10 chance, and a baby born today has almost a 40% chance of living to 85. the good part of that is life. there are a lot of policy issues that come along with that. we have a population whose demographics are changing rapidly. host: as we look to some other figures, this is the leading causes of death around the country. heart disease is on the decline. stroke is on the decline. chronic lung disease has increased. cancer has been prett

dr. edgar sondik is the director of the national center for health statistics, and michael o'grady is at the university of chicago research center. thank you for being with us. before we take a short break, we want to let you know the latest on the unemployment rate. we talked about it in our first 45 minutes on "washington journal." no change. the unemployment rate for the month of august, 9.1%, a drop from 9.4% last december, but as we heard from the white house yesterday, the administration expects the rate to hover around and% through the next year. there has been some increase in jobs in the health-care industry trade government employment continues to trend downward. no change in manufacturing and non-from a payroll. all this and more on c-span.org. we will have coverage of the president's speech as he addresses a joint session of congress. that will take place thursday, 7:00 eastern time, on c-span and c-span radio. coming up, the director of the national weather service as we look at factors in the aftermath of hurricane irene. why was the national weather service form and how do