America’s most populous state is growing again.
California’s population grew last year for the first time since 2019, according to new estimates released Tuesday by Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration.
The net increase in residents in 2023 was just over 67,000 (+0.17%), halting a three-year population decline trend. This included the first year-over-year decline in state history in his 2020, a key census year that later led to the Vital Census. California loses its House seat. California now has more than 39.1 million residents, according to state estimates.
California is in the midst of a population exodus, data shows the state’s population is projected to be the same by 2060 as it is today.
The Newsom administration attributes this decline to a combination of increased death rates due to the coronavirus pandemic, lower birth rates, and a slowdown in legal international immigration caused by the pandemic and strict immigration restrictions during the Donald Trump era. He claimed that this was the cause.
California, which has faced significant population declines and stagnant population for the past three years, has started to grow for the first time since 2019 after reports that the state’s population is estimated at 30.1 million people. There is. (David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
But critics point to a surge in people leaving California for other states, saying residents are tired of higher taxes, a growing homeless population and a lack of housing while Democrats are in power. I’m interpreting it.
Even in 2023, more people left California than moved there from other states, but far fewer than the previous year. In 2021, when coronavirus infections were still surging and more people were transitioning to remote work, California lost a net 355,648 people due to domestic migration.
In 2023, 91,189 more people will move out of California than move into the state as the pandemic ends and companies focus on returning to in-office workspaces. Ta. The numbers are fairly close to pre-pandemic trends, said Walter Schwarm, chief demographer at the California Department of Treasury.
“We saw an increase early in the pandemic because we had a certain number of people moving out of state related to remote work, but we’ve seen that trend reverse,” California said. Spokesman HD Palmer said. Ministry of Finance.
Meanwhile, growth from legal international immigration, which has been California’s growth engine for decades, has rebounded, with a net gain of 114,200 people in 2023, roughly the same level as before the pandemic.
“With immigration backlogs largely resolved and deaths returning to long-term trends, the economy has returned to a stable base for continued growth,” the Treasury Department said in a news release announcing the estimates. Stated.
California’s economy has shown signs of stress lately. The state is running into a multibillion-dollar budget deficit due to a decline in state tax revenue. California’s unemployment rate is 5.3%, higher than the national average and the highest of any state. The state’s strong technology industry has also been plagued by layoffs as companies grapple with a slowdown in investment.
Nevertheless, 31 of California’s 58 counties experienced population growth, including 9 of the 10 counties with populations of more than 1 million people. Los Angeles County, the nation’s most populous county with more than 9 million residents, saw a slight increase of 0.05%, while neighboring Orange County saw growth of 0.31%.
California’s population has skyrocketed since its creation as a state in 1850, and the gold rush led to a surge in people crossing the border in search of wealth in the West. The state experienced significant economic development after World War II, in the wake of the rapid growth of the aerospace industry, and with the Silicon Valley technology boom of the 1980s and 1990s. .
By 2019, California was at risk of breaking the 40 million population threshold. However, that milestone did not materialize as the state entered a period of population decline in 2020.
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The California Department of Treasury releases two population estimates each year. One is for the previous calendar year, and the other is for the previous year (from July 1st to June 30th). The estimates released Tuesday are for the previous calendar year and represent the state’s population as of January 1, 2024.
California bases its estimates on a number of factors, including births and deaths, address changes on driver’s licenses, vehicle registration, and enrollment in the government-funded health insurance programs Medicaid and Medicare.
As of July 1, 2023, California’s population was 38.9 million, according to U.S. Census data released in December. The Newsom administration’s estimates are higher because they include more recent data from driver’s license changes and tax returns, they said.
