US death rate fell to a record low in 2025, CDC data show
Provisional data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show the US age-adjusted death rate dropped 4.6% in 2025, to 689.2 deaths per 100,000 people from 722.1 the year before — the lowest overall rate since federal recordkeeping began, with declines across every age group. Demographers say that most likely translates into a record-high life expectancy once the full set of death records is processed.
The improvement is driven chiefly by continued retreats in COVID-19 and drug-overdose deaths; overdoses still killed about 70,000 people but fell sharply from their peak. The gains are uneven: death rates among Black and American Indian people remain more than double those of Asian people, and men die at a markedly higher rate than women. One counter-trend stands out — influenza and pneumonia climbed into the top 10 causes of death for the first time since 2020, accounting for more than 56,500 deaths.