US population improvement smallest in at least 120 years

US population improvement smallest in at least 120 years

• By Staff Writer

US population improvement smallest in at least 120 years

Smallest rate of development

The U.S. population grew by the smallest rate in at least 120 years from 2019 to 2020, according to figures released Tuesday by the U.S. Census Bureau _ a tendency that demographers say provides a glimpse of the coronavirus pandemic's toll. Population growth in the U.S. already was stagnant over the past some years due to displacement restrictions and a dip in fertility, but coronavirus-related deaths exacerbated that lethargic-growth tendency, said William Frey, a senior fellow at The Brooking Institution's Metropolitan Policy Program.

​Smallest increase this century

The U.S. population grew by 0.35% from July 2019 to July 2020, an increase of 1.1 million people in a nation whose estimated  population in July was more than 329 million residents, according to Census Bureau estimates. An analysis by Frey shows that it's the smallest increase this century and smaller than any in the last century as well. At the height of the Spanish flu, the development rate from 1918 to 1919 was 0.49% _ even with U.S. troops abroad during World War I.

Sates that lost population

The Northeast and Midwest regions of the U.S. had tiny population declines from 2019 to 2020, while the South and West regions had slight development. Among the states, Idaho had the largest single-year population increase, growing 2.1% to 1.8 million residents. It was followed by Arizona, which grew 1.8%; Nevada, which increased 1.5%; Utah, which grew 1.4%; and Texas, which increased 1.3%.Sixteen states lost population, including California, the nation's most populous state, which declined 0.18% to 39.3 million residents.

Coronavirus and population development

New York _ the pandemic's epicenter in the spring _ had the nation's biggest decline, losing an estimated 126,000 residents, or a dip of 0.65%. The Empire State has been losing residents since 2016, but the drop from 2019 to 2020 was significantly larger than in years past. New York's population decrease was followed by Illinois, with a 0.63% drop; Hawaii, with a 0.61% decline; West Virginia, with a 0.58% drop; and Mississippi, with a 0.38% decline.

Important data

The estimates released Tuesday were conducted independently of the 2020 statistics, which is a head count of every U.S. resident, but they offer a preview of what the census may show once its data are finished being chomped. The data from the once-a-decade census are used to determine how many congressional seats every state gets based on population, as well as the distribution of $1.5 trillion in federal funding.

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