US death rate falls to lowest on record — after massive plunges in two major killers

Tens of thousands of Americans dodged death last year, new data shows.

The US death rate has fallen to the lowest point on record ahead of America 250, as fatal overdoses and COVID fatalities continued to plunge.

The death rate fell 4.6% last year to 689.2 deaths per 100,000, according to new data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Deaths surged to 879.7 per 100,000 people in 2021 at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. Overdose deaths peaked a year later in 2022, and then started falling.

But last year, death declined across nearly every demographic and every age group, according to the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics.

The main driver of the record low death rate was the continued fall in fatal drug overdoses and COVID deaths, according to report co-author Farida Ahmad.

Black Americans continue to have the highest death rate of any tracked group, while men still die at higher rates than women, as has been the case for many years.

There were some surprising features of the new data, including a rise in deaths from influenza and pneumonia, which moved from the no. 11 leading cause of death to no. 8.

In 2025, 56,500 people died of influenza and pneumonia, up from 48,100 in 2024.

Last year also marked the first time the influenza category had appeared in the top 10 causes of death since 2020.

The rising influenza deaths were blamed on more dangerous flu strains and declining vaccination rates.

“Some seasons are better, with lower attack rates and lower morbidity, and other seasons, just by nature of the changes in the viruses, are worse, with more hospitalizations and more deaths,” Geeta Sood, associate professor of medicine at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, told the Wall Street Journal.

“We’re seeing nationally less trust for vaccines than we did in the past, and that’s what most of us in epidemiology and public health think is the predominant reason for lack of vaccination,” she said.

The 2024-25 flu season was one of the most severe in years, with an estimated 51 million cases and 710,000 hospitalizations, according to the CDC.