U.S. population grew only 0.1% in 2021 lowest rate since nation's founding

[Hydrogen]

The United States’ population grew by just 0.1 percent in the past year, the lowest rate since the nation’s founding, according to estimates released Tuesday by the Census Bureau — a slowdown in which the coronavirus pandemic had a major role.

The country’s population increased by 392,665 in the year ending on July 1, 2021. Some of the reduced rate of growth can be attributed to decreased immigration, reduced fertility and an aging population, trends underway before the pandemic. But the pandemic helped push the rate down to almost flat growth.

“We knew it has had a lot of economic impact, a lot of social impact; this shows it has had a big demographic impact that is going to last us for several years,” said William Frey, a senior demographer at the Brookings Institution.

The 2020 census showed the slowest growth rate for any decade since the United States started taking a census, with the exception of the 1930s during the Great Depression. But the coronavirus has exacerbated the trend. More than 800,000 people have died in the United States since the pandemic began, and mortality has also risen among people who had indirect negative health outcomes as a result of the pandemic.

Over three-fifths of the growth this year, or 244,622 people, is estimated to be from net international migration, or the difference between the number of people moving into the country and out of the country. Natural increase, or the number of births minus the number of deaths, was estimated at just 148,043 people, a reduction of 84 percent from two years ago. It is the first year that net international migration has exceeded natural increase, according to the bureau.

Kenneth Johnson, a sociology professor and senior demographer at the University of New Hampshire’s Carsey School of Public Policy, called the sharp decline in natural increase “stunning” and said the pandemic played a central role. “In addition to 475,000 deaths directly attributable to covid during the period, it also increased mortality by hindering people’s access to treatment for other health conditions, discouraged people from having babies, and reduced immigration,” he wrote in an analysis of Tuesday’s estimates.

Seventeen states plus the District of Columbia lost population this year, with the biggest absolute declines in New York, California and Illinois. Those states also saw large numbers of people moving out to other states. Domestic migration tends to exacerbate overall gains and losses, Frey said. The biggest absolute gains were in Texas, Florida and Arizona, states that have seen high levels of in-migration.

The population of D.C. dropped by 2.9 percent, a steep decline compared with recent years. The city lost about 23,000 residents through domestic migration, offset by a gain of about 2,100 people from natural increase and about 1,100 from international migration. In 2020, 2019 and 2018, D.C. had lost just 658, 2,417 and 444 people, respectively, through domestic migration; before that the numbers had been positive going back to 2008.

“It’s a huge outlier,” Frey said, adding that it is the biggest domestic out-migration the city has seen in a year since at least 1990. The change in administration during a pandemic combined with the large numbers of people working from home probably slowed the in-migration flow that normally would come into the city, he added.

The city’s population had risen steeply early in the decade after the Great Recession, contributing to a 14.6 percent increase between the 2010 and the 2020 censuses. But city officials had expected it to be higher, and some have questioned whether the 2020 count missed some residents. The mayor’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the new estimates.

Maryland and Virginia were more stable, changing by -0.1 percent and 0.1 percent, respectively.

Twenty-five states registered a natural decrease, compared with just eight last year and four in the three years before that. The natural decrease was highest in Florida, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Michigan.

The nation’s population slowdown could have dire implications for the country if it persists, leading to problems such as too few young people being available to supply the labor force, Frey said.

“These are numbers you see in some Eastern European countries. It does make you stand up and take notice. It’s really a benchmark we hope we don’t see too often.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2021/12/21/census-population-growth-record-low/

....


I would guess similar negative population trends are emerging around the world atm.

Over roughly the past 50 years, population sizes have close to doubled in many regions. Mainly due to increases in food production which only became sustainable thanks to the advent of the post petroleum economy. AFAIK development of crude oil based chemistry made it easier and more feasible to mass produce and distribute crop fertilizer, pesticides and herbicides. Fossil fuels also drove the development of farm tractors, combines and mechanized farming, replacing horse or oxen driven plows. Before these modern developments, it was impossible to grow enough food to sustain the high population growth we enjoy today. There is a chance spikes in the price of oil trickle down to the farming industry if indeed crop fertilizer, pesticide and herbicide are still derived as heavily from crude oil as they were in past eras.

There may be a few conflicting points recorded in the above text. Anyone who has paid attention throughout this crisis, might notice a few glaring points. At least some of it tracks clean and accurate. I would say all of it could be considered decent grounds for some type of discussion.

Politically, nations like japan which exhibited negative population growth have been criticized. With the polar opposite held up as an ideal we should pursue. Politicians of past eras claimed the national deficit would be paid down by population growth and greater numbers of citizens paying tax revenues. Although it is not a point I have seen mentioned in some time.

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[fiulpro]

Honestly I do not understand the reason why Japan have been criticized for their negative population rate. If we do look at the big picture the whole world's population is still increasing therefore that doesn't even make sense, the 0.1% population growth is actually good not just for the environment but also for the world as a whole. Overpopulation is something that needed to be controlled and people are themselves doing that now and that's nothing short of amazing. The population is currently increasing but 1.05% per year and therefore if the developed countries do step forward and improve their quality of life, won't it be better ? Government can also work on making the policies better for the existing people, it's not about the quantity it's about the quality!! I think it's a good thing.

[tyz]

If I interpret the article correctly, then we are dealing with officially registered citizens. For those, the number has grown by 0.1%. But if you consider that there are millions and millions of illegal immigrants in the USA and that this number has surely risen sharply in the last 1-2 years due to the strict entry conditions, then the actual population growth will be significantly higher.

[odolvlobo]

If I interpret the article correctly, then we are dealing with officially registered citizens.

The U.S. census also includes illegal immigrants.

"The nation’s population slowdown could have dire implications for the country if it persists, leading to problems such as too few young people being available to supply the labor force", Frey said.

The real problem is that the Social Security ponzi scheme can only be kept afloat by an increasing population (as well as high interest rates and low inflation).

[hatshepsut93]

The real problem is that the Social Security ponzi scheme can only be kept afloat by an increasing population (as well as high interest rates and low inflation).

Srsly, the Universe might be infinite, but Earth and its resources isn't, so when will society realize that infinite population growth is not going to work in the long run? And developed countries don't really need these ponzi schemes, it's not like there would be mass starvation without them.

[Sithara007]

The Biden administration may end up importing more third world migrants from Latin America and Africa, and now they have got the perfect excuse. Excess mortality from COVID has played a major role, and another important factor was played by worsening economy. A lot of families have delayed their plans for child bearing due to difficult economic conditions, and the situation is not going to improve in the next few years. Anyway, the situation in US is far better when being compared to other countries. For example in Russia, the population is sinking by around one million per year.

[jrrsparkles]

Its good for the economy atleast less people will fave issues, I don't really think that it is happening all around the world so the population is keel rising and exhausting all the resources we had for millions of years in just few centuries, probably in the last two more than ever. Some countries made strict rules even before a couple of years to keep the numbers under control.

[Darker45]

Honestly I do not understand the reason why Japan have been criticized for their negative population rate. If we do look at the big picture the whole world's population is still increasing therefore that doesn't even make sense, the 0.1% population growth is actually good not just for the environment but also for the world as a whole. Overpopulation is something that needed to be controlled and people are themselves doing that now and that's nothing short of amazing. The population is currently increasing but 1.05% per year and therefore if the developed countries do step forward and improve their quality of life, won't it be better ? Government can also work on making the policies better for the existing people, it's not about the quantity it's about the quality!! I think it's a good thing.

I guess it's about productivity and, therefore, about economy and growth and power and so on.

Actually, these are not simply criticisms arising from people looking at the situation of Japan from the outside. Japan itself is treating its population situation as a sort of crisis. Not only is the country going through with an aging population, it is also facing a severely low fertility rate. Japan is expected to lose tens of millions of people in the next few decades. And not only that, by that time, a huge portion of the population is expected to be old. The country is making steps to counter this.

This is not the only alternative outside overpopulation so it is illogical to raise the overpopulation narrative to make it look like a dwindling population is the best way to go.

[bittraffic]

The pandemic started in 2020, I'm sure a lot of people don't want to start a family to start in a bad year where there's so much fear even when just going out of the house. We are yet not on the brink of extinction though so it's not going to be a big problem. This is not going to be just the problem of US but all over the world. Population in the next years to come will probably decline too due to this health crisis and we are all aging.

[Charles-Tim]

Over roughly the past 50 years, population sizes have close to doubled in many regions. Mainly due to increases in food production which only became sustainable thanks to the advent of the post petroleum economy.

I remembered when I spent a year in the far northern part of my country, in just a state there, so this is likely not to be accurate but the north have similar practices. Could you believe it was weired for me to know that the people there prefer using their cattles and farm implements for farming? But the use of fertilizer will surely help. Even they use the cow as their car home. They were very different from we in the South, even a land is not spared in their GRA, all were used for farming.

Politically, nations like japan which exhibited negative population growth have been criticized.

Can you read this about my country:

Plan now for Nigeria's population explode

Yet, the rate of low quality living, unemployment and poverty is increasing in my country. I have been thinking how Japan have managed to maintain their population. Also 2006 data till now, I noticed USA is maintaining over 300 million but less than 400 million population. Also I noticed other developed countries are maintaining fair population, but countries like Nigeria and Ethiopia are increasing like flies.

What is most important is quality of standard of living, what many increasing population do not have.

[Poker Player]

Can you read this about my country:

Plan now for Nigeria's population explode

Yet, the rate of low quality living, unemployment and poverty is increasing in my country. I have been thinking how Japan have managed to maintain their population. Also 2006 data till now, I noticed USA is maintaining over 300 million but less than 400 million population. Also I noticed other developed countries are maintaining fair population, but countries like Nigeria and Ethiopia are increasing like flies.

What is most important is quality of standard of living, what many increasing population do not have.

In reality, it happens as in nature. A plant that suffers, that notices that it has problems for survival, puts out more seeds to ensure the survival of its genes. Similarly, nations where a high level of welfare has been achieved, tend to have fewer offspring and if the population is maintained or continues to grow it is because of immigration, while in poorer nations people tend to have more offspring. We are not so different from plants in that sense.

In reality, as the world continues to develop, the increase in population will slow down and we may even have a reduction in the total world population in the future, which would be good for the planet, because the most anti-ecological thing there is is a world with 7 billion people and growing.

[Cnut237]

The United States’ population grew by just 0.1 percent in the past year, the lowest rate since the nation’s founding, according to estimates released Tuesday by the Census Bureau — a slowdown in which the coronavirus pandemic had a major role.

I would guess similar negative population trends are emerging around the world atm.

I'm not sure that Covid has much to do with the longer-term picture.

The demographic transition model is widely-accepted and well-understood. Exponential population growth is a temporary phenomenon, due to the nature of modernisation processes, in which the benefits that result in a lower death rate (e.g. health and hygiene improvements, particularly as affects child mortality) almost invariably arrive earlier than the benefits that result in a lower birth rate (access to education, improved economic conditions, contraception, etc). The diagram below gives quite a good explanation (Although Japan should probably be in stage 5, rather than 4). Note that this is a general trend, and won't always be an exact fit to every nation and every circumstance.

[davis196]

The natural demographic growth of the developed countries is becoming negative due to cultural factors,not economic or social factors.Many young girls and women don't want to raise kids.
They want to stay focused on their career and have fun living a promiscuous dating life.
The negative demographic growth gets compensated by immigration of people coming from underdeveloped countries into the rich western world.
The reduced growth of the population isn't the biggest problem,the biggest problem is the change of the demographic structure of the population-increased number of elderly people and decreased number of youngsters.
Having more old people and less young people is a big problem for every country.
This means less taxpayers and more people,who will rely on the social security systems,which are funded by the taxpayers.

[Cnut237]

the biggest problem is the change of the demographic structure of the population-increased number of elderly people and decreased number of youngsters.
Having more old people and less young people is a big problem for every country.
This means less taxpayers and more people,who will rely on the social security systems,which are funded by the taxpayers.

I would argue that this is a temporary problem, caused by the fact that during the development of a modern society, the death rate starts to decline much more quickly than the birth rate... as per the chart above.

Example:

i) High birth rate and high death rate: 10 people born, of whom 2 survive to old age.
ii) High birth rate and low death rate: 10 people born, of whom 9 survive to old age.
iii) Low birth rate and low death rate: 2 people born, of whom 1 survives to old age.

If development is sufficiently rapid, you have a temporary situation where you are at step iii) and have 2 kids born per year, but the old people now are those who were born at an earlier stage, step ii), so you have 9 old people per 2 young people. This will change after a couple of generations, when both the 'young' and the 'old' people are those born at step iii.

[wxa7115]

Honestly I do not understand the reason why Japan have been criticized for their negative population rate. If we do look at the big picture the whole world's population is still increasing therefore that doesn't even make sense, the 0.1% population growth is actually good not just for the environment but also for the world as a whole. Overpopulation is something that needed to be controlled and people are themselves doing that now and that's nothing short of amazing. The population is currently increasing but 1.05% per year and therefore if the developed countries do step forward and improve their quality of life, won't it be better ? Government can also work on making the policies better for the existing people, it's not about the quantity it's about the quality!! I think it's a good thing.

While I agree at the same time the current economic paradigm is based on the belief there will always be economic growth and for that you need people that produce and consume what is produced, a reduction of the population will most likely crash the current system.

And when we add the debt levels that countries have then this becomes even more insidious, as even if the debt levels remain the same a sharp decrease in the population means that now each person needs to produce more to pay the same amount of debt, this is why countries are so worried about the drop in the birth rates caused by the pandemic.

[paxmao]

I guess it has not been the best year to produce new humans, yet US is obviously under the same trend as Japan has already been for decades, Europe has been also for a while and all civilised countries sooner or later get to: the growth is limited, there are no significant wars that create threats and opportunities and there are however risks of deflating the massive boostered bubble of the economy working at 110%. You would be crazy to generate a new human willingly under this conditions, it is just not practical.

Yep, population piramids tend to become population rectangles in most developed countries.

[kaya11]

I think people are scared there to raise another child due to current condition of the world. A pandemic is still on the run and we might be having another wave, I respect people with plans and it might also help them survive if making another baby will be postponed for another year around.
I don't know what is the situation of the people living in the US and how hard it is to raising a child in there, but here in our place we can have as much as we want, as long as we don't neglect or duties to them so we are far away from planning to be a negative population growth country.

[stompix]

Can you read this about my country:

Plan now for Nigeria's population explode

Yet, the rate of low quality living, unemployment and poverty is increasing in my country. I have been thinking how Japan have managed to maintain their population. Also 2006 data till now, I noticed USA is maintaining over 300 million but less than 400 million population. Also I noticed other developed countries are maintaining fair population, but countries like Nigeria and Ethiopia are increasing like flies.

What is most important is quality of standard of living, what many increasing population do not have.

Wait for another generation, things that have happened in South America and Eastern Asia will happen in Africa also:
https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.TFRT.IN?end=2019&locations=IN-VN-TH-US-BR&start=1960&view=chart



This is the fertility rate (births per woman) and it clearly shows that the trend is going everywhere down to US and European levels, most countries in the world were above 6 half a century ago now most of the world is around 2, those projections about overpopulation will never become true.

The natural demographic growth of the developed countries is becoming negative due to cultural factors,not economic or social factors.Many young girls and women don't want to raise kids.
They want to stay focused on their career and have fun living a promiscuous dating life.

Those are exactly social and economic factors, cultural factors are related to traditional families rules, religion, marriage systems, the trend down in Europe has nothing to do with these, most of those cultural factors are driving the rates up, not down. The best example for this is China where economical factors are driving the birth rates down, the cost of education and raising a kid are prohibitory for most families in choosing to have a second or third child. As you can see, nobody gives a damn about this in Africa.

[ChiBitCTy]

I have been hearing and reading about the population slowing down in the United States of late and found it a bit hard to believe at first but after a while this to me is nothing but excellent news. The whole world as a whole is overpopulated and we need to do things to curb population, looks like it’s finally doing a little bit of it on its own!

[pinggoki]

I have been hearing and reading about the population slowing down in the United States of late and found it a bit hard to believe at first but after a while this to me is nothing but excellent news. The whole world as a whole is overpopulated and we need to do things to curb population, looks like it’s finally doing a little bit of it on its own!

Well, either the people are getting smart and they know how to pull out or use a contraceptive or there's been a spike in abortion in the country. Of course besides the pandemic factor, I am sure there's a lot of factors besides that and those that I've mentioned. Another thing that I can think of is that they see how expensive it is to raise a kid in USA so a lot of people are discouraged. This is a concerning thing though as this means that the population will steadily go down overtime if mortality rate is much higher than birthrate.