There were three major factors influencing death rate starting in 2008 - the oldest of the baby boom generation was hitting retirement age, the birth rate began a significant drop that has continued for twelve years, and we had the Great Recession. This has had the effect of skewing the mortality rates higher simply because the boomers made up a much larger overall percentage of the population, effectively inverting it. The previous generation was fairly small, as was the following one, so the effect was more pronounced. Average age at death also plateaued around the same time at around 77 for men and 79 for women. The oldest boomers are around 75 at this point. On the other hand, the variance in the age of death has been steadily increasing, with more centenarians alive relative to the total population than ever, but also more people dying in their 60s.
The death rate will continue accelerating until about 2035, then will start to slow down, reaching a peak in 2050. This is already baked into the cards, though Covid-19 may end up pushing these dates forward by anywhere from two to five years. there's a bit of a dip afterwards because the GenXers were the mirror opposites of the Boomers - their population is much smaller relative to those born between 1943 and 1961 (I've made arguments elsewhere why I think these dates are more accurate).
We're now in a corrective period - by 2050, US population will actually be considerably more bottom-heavy than it is now, which is typical for age demographic distributions.
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