Overview

• This is not a subject that contains sex, drugs, and rock and roll.
• Up to 150,000 individuals may go unclaimed each year, including both identified cases awaiting burial or cremation and unidentified remains, underscoring the scope of the issue.
• Other sources offer a more conservative figure of about 34,000, representing roughly 1 percent of all annual U.S. deaths.
• A broader study suggests that 2–4 percent of the approximately 2.8 million annual deaths are unclaimed, totaling up to about 114,000 unclaimed remains yearly.

These wide-ranging estimates and fragmented tracking systems not only hinder accurate quantification but also impede targeted policy responses to address unclaimed bodies and social isolation at the end of life.

💔 Dying Alone: Many face the profound loneliness of dying without loved ones or human presence, which can evoke empathy and concern.

• Reliable figures for how many people physically die completely alone—without any human presence, caregiver, or loved one—are hard to come by.

Detailed national tracking isn’t available.

• However, loneliness and solo living correlate with higher mortality risk.
• Among older individuals:
• The average age of those who die alone is around 81, with men comprising about 67% of these solo deaths. 
• Chronic loneliness raises overall mortality risk by approximately 26%, and roughly 80% of those dying alone show signs of mental-health issues.
• Nearly 50% of elderly individuals who die alone have no advance directive or end-of-life plan.

1.  Low Literacy and Poverty

• Low literacy often correlates with limited economic opportunities.  People with poor literacy skills tend to earn less, which can perpetuate cycles of poverty.
• Poverty reduces access to healthcare, housing stability, and social support systems.  Families struggling financially may not have resources for elder care, hospice, or even funeral expenses.

2   Impact on End-of-Life Care

• When families lack money, they may be unable to provide in-home care or pay for assisted living.  This can lead to individuals dying alone in hospitals, nursing homes, or even at home without adequate support.
• Funeral costs are high—often $7,000–$12,000—so unclaimed bodies usually result from families who cannot afford burial or cremation.

3• Illiteracy and poverty can deepen social isolation, making social workers and healthcare professionals feel compelled to address these root causes to prevent lonely deaths.

• Illiteracy can also limit social engagement.  People who struggle with reading and writing may have fewer connections beyond their immediate family, which can increase isolation as they age.
• Combine that with poverty, and you have a higher likelihood of dying without loved ones present or having remains go unclaimed.

4.  Systemic Gaps

• There’s no national safety net for these situations beyond minimal state programs for indigent burials.
• Communities with high poverty and low literacy rates often see higher numbers of unclaimed bodies and lonely deaths because both economic and social support systems are weak.

Why this is tricky (and fixable)

• There’s no national, standardized dataset of “unclaimed deaths” by state or county.  Tracking is decentralized; a few jurisdictions publish counts or rates, while most do not.  Maryland is one of the only states with time-series percentages (e.g., 4.5% of total deaths unclaimed in 2021).  Los Angeles County publicly reports annual ceremonies and rates (roughly 2–3% of adult deaths are unclaimed), and multiple counties publish counts, but not consistent rates.
• Adult literacy data are available and of high quality via NCES’s PIAAC Skills Map at both the state and county levels (average literacy scores and percentage of low-literacy individuals).
• NamUs reports national totals for unclaimed persons cases but does not provide a readily available, reliable per-state time series on the public reports page; it instead publishes monthly national aggregates.  So using NamUs for per-state regression requires additional case-level extraction. 

Proposed method: to build a multijurisdictional sample in which both variables exist (unclaimed remains per year and adult literacy) and then compute correlations.

·         Geography: Use county-level units (they publish unclaimed counts more often than states).  Candidate jurisdictions with documented unclaimed remains:

·        Los Angeles County, CA: ~2–3% of adult deaths unclaimed; ~2,308 unclaimed from 2022 now being interred (counted in 2025 ceremony).

·        Cook County, IL (Chicago): Office publishes indigent/unclaimed cremations datasets and annual reports (counts by year).

·        Fulton County, GA (Atlanta): 456 unclaimed burials in 2021 (official annual report).

·        Maricopa County, AZ (Phoenix): Documented spike during the COVID era; the county ME maintains case portals and press reports.

·        Hinds County, MS (Jackson): Documented pauper’s field burials with counts since 2016.nbcnews+1

·        (Optionally add Harris County, TX, and others with public “unclaimed” pages to increase N.)

·         Standardize the outcome: Convert each county’s unclaimed remains into a comparable metric—e.g., unclaimed per 100,000 residents (population-normalized) or, better, share of total deaths unclaimed (requires total deaths by county/year).

·        Some sources provide a percentage (e.g., LA County ~3%, Maryland statewide 4.5%).  Where only counts exist, we’ll use population-normalized counts; if total deaths are available (vital stats), we’ll compute the unclaimed share.

·         Literacy measure: Pull county-level PIAAC estimates:

·        Average literacy score (0–500 scale), and/or % of adults at low literacy (Level 1 or below).

·         Compute correlation: Using Python, compute Pearson r (and Spearman ρ for robustness), plot a scatter (literacy vs. unclaimed measure), and report effect sizes with CIs.

·         Limitations to note: This analysis will be illustrative, not causal; coverage bias exists because counties that publish data may differ systematically.  We will document the year, source, and potential biases for each observation to ensure transparency and contextual understanding.

Sources we will rely on for the dataset

• Adult literacy (PIAAC): NCES PIAAC Skills Map and state/county indicators.
• Unclaimed remains (examples):
• LA County rates and annual ceremony counts.
• Cook County indigent/unclaimed datasets and yearly report.
• Fulton County Medical Examiner 2021 Annual Report (unclaimed burials).
• Maricopa County ME portals and reporting on spikes.
• Hinds County pauper’s field reporting and lists.
• Context on the lack of centralized tracking: NamUs reports national-level caseloads; public reporting isn’t state-resolved in the monthly summaries.

In conclusion:

Unclaimed human remains number between 34,000 and 150,000 in the U.S. each year.

Dying entirely alone (with no one present) lacks specific national tracking, but the phenomenon is tied to older age, social isolation, and mental-health issues.