The U.S. has hit a life expectancy milestone once thought distant: 79 years in 2024. That 0.6-year rise from 2023 represents the strongest rebound since the pandemic shook the nation’s health outlook. This gain reflects deeper changes in survival trends, touching age groups, regions, and causes of death across the country.
Final data from the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics shows why this matters. The overall age-adjusted death rate fell by nearly 4% in one year. That kind of drop rarely happens in a large population.
It means fewer families lost loved ones and more people lived long enough to reach older ages. After years of grim headlines, the numbers finally point up.
Why Americans Are Living Longer Again
Kampus / Pexels / Per the CDC report, people died less often from almost everything. Death rates declined for all ten of the leading causes of death in 2024.
This was broad and steady across the board, which explains why the national average rose so quickly.
Unintentional injuries led the charge. That category includes drug overdoses, car crashes, and other accidents. Deaths in this group dropped by 14.4% in a single year. Heart disease also moved in the right direction. The nation’s top killer posted a second straight annual decline of about 3%, helped by better treatments and more effective weight control.
COVID-19 continued to fade from prominence, moving down to the fifteenth leading cause of death after previously dominating U.S. mortality statistics.
Overdoses Fall Hard, Health Gaps Narrow Slightly
Drug overdose deaths recorded one of the most significant improvements. A CDC report confirmed that 2024 brought the largest single-year drop ever recorded in overdose mortality, with a 26.2% decline from 2023. This isn’t just a minor correction—it’s a record-breaking improvement that saved tens of thousands of lives.
Much of the drop came from synthetic opioids. Fentanyl-related deaths fell 35.6%, thanks to greater access to naloxone, faster emergency responses, and changes in drug availability. The positive impact reached across age, gender, and racial groups.
Death rates fell for both men and women and across all major racial and ethnic groups. Men saw a larger life expectancy gain of 0.7 years, reaching 76.5 years, while women rose 0.3 years to 81.4 years, slightly narrowing the long-standing gap.
Progress Comes With Limits and Uneven Outcomes
Kampus / Pexels / The U.S. still lags behind many other wealthy countries in life expectancy. Even with the 2024 gains, dozens of developed nations continue to outpace America on longevity.
The rebound fixes part of the damage from the pandemic, but it does not close the global gap.
Deep disparities also remain at home. Death rates in 2024 were still highest among American Indian and Alaska Native males, at 1,213 deaths per 100,000 people. Black males followed closely at 1,095 per 100,000. Those figures tower over rates for Asian females at 318 or White females at 647.
Infant mortality showed no meaningful improvement from 2023, and children aged five to fourteen were the only age group that did not see a decline in death rates. The progress is real, but it is not evenly shared.
Preliminary data for 2025 and 2026 show about 3.05 million deaths nationwide. That is slightly lower than the 3.07 million recorded in 2024. While these figures may shift as final death certificates come in, health officials expect another modest improvement when the year is fully tallied.
