Trendspotting: U.S. Population Growth Nearly Comes to a Standstill

NewsWire: 1/10/22

• The U.S. population grew by just 0.1% in the past year, the lowest rate since the nation’s founding. Most of the growth was due to net international migration. (Census Bureau)
• NH: The U.S. population grew by just 0.12% from mid-2020 to mid-2021, the lowest yearly rate on record. The Census Bureau btw traditionally counts its "annual" population as a mid-year number, dated as of July 1 of each year.

• When I last discussed population trends (see “Is America Heading for Zero Population Growth?”), I predicted that the first official estimate for 2020-21 growth might show a slightly negative rate of natural increase (births minus deaths). Not quite, but we came close. According the Census' estimate, released last week, births minus deaths last year weighed in at 148,043. That's practically a rounding error. As a share of total U.S. population--which is how we measure rate of natural increase--it's +0.045%.
• Net migration contributed another 244,622 additional people. Which, again expressed as a growth rate, is also very small: +0.074%. Net migration has been declining rather steeply over the last five years. But in 2020-21, for the first time, it contributed more than half (62%) to total population growth. 

• These numbers are stunning. This year's count is the first time since 1937 that the U.S. population grew by fewer than one million people. And it is the lowest absolute growth number since at least 1900, when the Census Bureau began annual population estimates. 
• Across the nation, 31 states grew more slowly in 2020-21 than in 2019-20. 17 states, as well as Washington, D.C., saw their population shrink, led by New York (-319K residents), California (-261K), and Illinois (-114K). This is up from 16 population-losing states in 2019-20, 14 in 2018-19, and just 10 in the two years prior. Meanwhile, 25 states saw more deaths than births. Last year, this was true of only eight states.
• Given the pandemic, there was no doubt that we were going to see slower growth nationwide due to increased deaths and reduced births and immigration. These factors collided with other drivers that long preceded the arrival of Covid-19: population aging due to falling birthrates and falling immigration rates.
• Next year the numbers will probably improve somewhat. Net migration is likely to go up somewhat as Covid border controls are eased. Births (with their lagged impact) may stay about where they are. And Covid mortality rates are likely to go down. Stay tuned for better appraisals of the impact of Omicron.