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• Posted January 30, 2026

U.S. Life Expectancy Hits Record High as Death Rates Fall Nationwide

Americans are living longer than ever.

U.S. life expectancy climbed to 79 years in 2024, the highest level on record, new federal data shows. Health officials say fewer deaths from COVID-19, along with drops in heart disease, cancer and drug overdoses, helped drive the increase.

“It’s pretty much good news all the way around,” Robert Anderson of the National Center for Health Statistics told the Associated Press.

Life expectancy uses current death rates to estimate how long a baby born in a given year is expected to live.

For many years, that number ticked up thanks to better medicine and public health. It peaked just under 79 in 2014, then stayed flat before falling sharply during the COVID pandemic, which killed more than 1.2 million Americans. By 2021, life expectancy had dropped to under 76½ years.

Since then, it has steadily recovered.

This also shows lasting improvement in the drug overdose crisis, Andrew Stokes, a researcher at Boston University, told the Associated Press.

But Stokes noted that the U.S. continues to rank behind dozens of other countries when it comes to life expectancy.

“There’s a lot more to be done,” he said.

In 2024, about 3.07 million people died in the U.S., roughly 18,000 fewer than in 2023. Death rates dropped in both men and women and across all racial and ethnic groups.

Heart disease remained the leading cause of death, but deaths owing to it fell by about 3% for the second year in a row. Doctors say better treatments and improved weight management may be helping. 

Deaths from unintentional injuries such as overdoses dropped by more than 14%, the largest decline of any category.

COVID-19, once the nation’s third-leading killer, fell out of the top 10 in 2024.

Suicide moved into the top 10 causes of death, even though suicide rates also declined last year. 

Homicides dropped as well.

Early numbers for 2025 show about 3.05 million deaths have been recorded, although officials say that total could change as more records are added. 

Even so, Anderson expects 2025 will likely show another small improvement.

More information

Project Big Life has online calculators to help you estimate your life expectancy.

SOURCE: The Associated Press, Jan. 29, 2026