Commentary: Immigration Drove America’s Biggest Population Growth Ever Recorded

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services

Immigration is behind the biggest annual population increase in the history of the United States, according to an independent research firm.

“US population grew +3.8M in 2023 – the largest one-year increase in US history,” tweeted Eric Finnigan of John Burns Research and Consulting (JBREC) earlier this month.

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2020s on Track to Have the Slowest Population Growth in U.S. History

New Born

The U.S. Census Bureau released its population projections for New Year’s Day and the next decade may be the slowest-growing decade in U.S. history, according to The Associated Press.

The projected population is set to be 335,893,238 by midnight on Jan. 1, 2024, an increase of 0.53% or 1,759,535 people from the previous year, according to the Bureau. Despite this, William Frey, a demographer at The Brookings Institution, a public policy nonprofit, said that the 2020-2030 decade looks to be the slowest in history at less than 4%, noting the previous slowest decade for growth was 7.3%, according to the AP.

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Census Bureau Estimates Virginia Saw Only Slight Population Growth in 2022

Virginia gained more than 26,000 residents between July 1, 2021, and June 30, 2022, according to 2022 population estimates released by the U.S. Census Bureau. 

As of July 2022, the U.S. Census Bureau estimates Virginia’s population sat at 8,683,619 – an increase of 26,254 residents compared to July 2021 estimates. The figure represents a 0.3% change from 2021 to 2022. 

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Commentary: U.S. Population Growth Just Hit an All-Time Low

Crowd of people walking in New York City near the subway

Population growth in the United States declined to an all-time low during the COVID-19 pandemic. Following a decade-long fertility slump, 2020 saw more people dying than being born in half of all US states. Early estimates suggest that the US population grew only 0.35 percent, the lowest rate ever recorded, and growth is expected to remain near flat this year, according to reporting from the Wall Street Journal.

WSJ writers Janet Adamy and Anthony DeBarros report, “With the birthrate already drifting down, the nudge from the pandemic could result in what amounts to a scar on population growth, researchers say, which could be deeper than those left by historic periods of economic turmoil, such as the Great Depression and the stagnation and inflation of the 1970s, because it is underpinned by a shift toward lower fertility.”

The Malthusian View of Population

This demographic news comes at a time when limiting family size is widely encouraged in the media. In July, Meghan Markle and Prince Harry won an award for their “enlightened decision” to limit themselves to two children. And in response to a recent Census Bureau report of low population growth over the last decade, the Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman wrote in a New York Times column that, “In fact, in a world of limited resources and major environmental problems there’s something to be said for a reduction in population pressure.”

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Commentary: U.S. Population Growth Just Hit an All-Time Low

Crowd of people walking in New York City near the subway

Population growth in the United States declined to an all-time low during the COVID-19 pandemic. Following a decade-long fertility slump, 2020 saw more people dying than being born in half of all US states. Early estimates suggest that the US population grew only 0.35 percent, the lowest rate ever recorded, and growth is expected to remain near flat this year, according to reporting from the Wall Street Journal.

WSJ writers Janet Adamy and Anthony DeBarros report, “With the birthrate already drifting down, the nudge from the pandemic could result in what amounts to a scar on population growth, researchers say, which could be deeper than those left by historic periods of economic turmoil, such as the Great Depression and the stagnation and inflation of the 1970s, because it is underpinned by a shift toward lower fertility.”

The Malthusian View of Population

This demographic news comes at a time when limiting family size is widely encouraged in the media. In July, Meghan Markle and Prince Harry won an award for their “enlightened decision” to limit themselves to two children. And in response to a recent Census Bureau report of low population growth over the last decade, the Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman wrote in a New York Times column that, “In fact, in a world of limited resources and major environmental problems there’s something to be said for a reduction in population pressure.”

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U.S. Fertility Rate Declines for Sixth Straight Year

Infant feet

During 2020 the US birth rate fell 4% lower than the year before – the largest drop in nearly 50 years, according to government data released Wednesday.

The report showed the number of births fell across all ethnicities and origins.

“This is the sixth consecutive year that the number of births has declined after an increase in 2014, down an average of 2% per year, and the lowest number of births since 1979,” the National Center for Health Statistics said.

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