COVID-19 caused most of 2021's excess deaths
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Preliminary data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) shows that 3.4 million people died in the US last year. That’s 17% higher than expected. The data also suggests that common causes of mortality, like heart disease and cancer, led to fewer deaths than in previous years, while coronavirus deaths rose.
USAFacts parsed the data to clarify where excess deaths rose the most in 2021.
- Excess death metrics compare the expected number of deaths in a place over a given time to the actual number of deaths that occurred. The CDC measures these excess deaths to understand the burden of mortality associated with the pandemic.
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- COVID-19 was the third-most-common cause of death in 2020 and 2021, below heart disease and cancer. Coronavirus as a primary cause of death increased 10% last year, while heart disease deaths dropped 7% and cancer dropped 5%. COVID-19 was the leading cause of death nationwide in December 2020, January 2021, and September 2021.
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- Arizona had the country's highest rate of excess deaths last year, with 29% more people dying than expected. Rhode Island was the only state that did not experience excess deaths.
Get more perspective with our interactive map and discover the rates in all 50 states from 2017 to 2021. Click here to get started.
Who experiences poverty in America?
Americans comprise fewer than 5% of the world’s population but earn more than 20% of the world’s total income. Despite this, one in 10 Americans lives in poverty. To mark the end of National Poverty in America Awareness Month, here are the metrics of who experiences poverty in the United States.
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- Last year, the government considered a family of four impoverished if their household income was at or below $26,500 a year. The national median income for a family of the same size was $90,657.
- The percentage of people living in poverty reached 11.4% in 2020, the first rise in six years.
- The number of people experiencing homelessness grew for the fourth consecutive year in 2020, rising by 12,751 or 2.2%. However, the number is 10% lower than in 2007 when the Department of Housing and Urban Development started collecting the data.
- In 2020, nearly one in five homeless Americans were children: 106,364 children total.
How many Americans are food insecure? See the answers and more in this article.
One last fact
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Increased exports plus higher consumer spending led US gross domestic product (GDP) to grow at an annual rate of 6.9% in the final quarter of 2021. GDP grew 2.3% in the third quarter of last year.
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