ORLANDO — Immigration drove a population increase in the United States for the second consecutive year and, combined with the decrease in the number of deaths from the COVID-19 pandemic, the country registered greater demographic growth during 2023, according to calculations that the Census Bureau announced on Tuesday.
The United States registered an increase of 1.6 million inhabitants, of which more than two thirds were international migrants, for a total of 334.9 million residents. Demographic increases or declines occur when the birth rate exceeds the death rate, or vice versa, along with migration.
After immigration slowed during the second half of the last decade and fell further amid pandemic-related restrictions at the start of this decade, the number of immigrants rebounded to nearly a million people last year. The trend continued in 2023, registering 1.1 million people, the highest number of immigrants in more than 20 years, according to Census Bureau figures compiled by William Frey, a demographer at The Brookings Institution.
Immigration, the source of population growth
It is a sample of what is coming this century. Without taking immigration into account, the US population would decline towards the end of the 2030s, when the number of deaths exceeds the number of births, according to projections.
“Immigration will be the main source of growth in the future,” Frey declared.
Although low by historical standards, the 0.5% growth rate in 2023 was a slight increase from 0.4% last year and 0.2% in 2021.
This year there were around 300,000 fewer deaths compared to the previous year. That helped double the natural increase to more than 500,000 people during 2023, contributing to the largest population growth in the United States since 2018, according to estimates for the period from mid-2022 to mid-2023.
Most of the growth, 87%, was in the South, a region the Census Bureau defines as stretching from Texas to Maryland to Delaware.
But the concentration of growth seen during the height of the pandemic in Texas, Florida, North Carolina and Georgia slowed in 2023 as other states experienced declines in deaths and growth from immigration.
“We reached a peak in the movement of people to those areas of the Sun Belt,” Frey said. “It’s slowing down a little bit.”
Florida registers greater growth
South Carolina’s 1.7% growth rate was the highest of any state, and its population totaled more than 90,000 residents. More than 90% of the growth was the product of people moving from another state. Without national or international migration, the entity would have suffered a demographic decline in 2023, after the death rate exceeded the birth rate by almost 1,300 people.
Florida was the second-highest population growth state with 1.6%, or more than 365,000 residents. It was also the second largest increase in terms of raw numbers, behind only the 473,000 inhabitants in Texas. More people moved to Florida than any other state in the country during 2023, at 373,000, a number that encompasses a virtually identical proportion of domestic and international migrants. Far fewer residents died in Florida this year relative to last, resulting in a natural decline of just about 7,600 people.
States with decline
On the other hand, New York had the largest demographic decline, with a drop of 0.5%. It also recorded the largest decline in raw numbers at nearly 102,000 residents, although the decline was much smaller than last year’s drop of 180,000 residents. The almost 74,000 international arrivals and the natural increase of more than 41,000 inhabitants in the state were not enough to compensate for the almost 217,000 New Yorkers who left the state between mid-2022 and mid-2023.
California remains the most populous state in the country, with 38.9 million inhabitants, although this year it lost more than 75,000 residents, while last year it registered a drop of more than 113,000 people. Texas was the second most populous state, with 30.5 million residents.
Georgia surpassed 11 million inhabitants for the first time in 2023, joining only seven other entities that reached that demographic threshold.
Source: With information from AP
