American population growth slides to a near-historic low
A nurse administers a shot of COVID-19 vaccine during a pop-up vaccination event at Lynn Family Stadium on Monday in Louisville, Kentucky.
US population growth fell over the past decade to the second-slowest pace in history, the Census Bureau reported on Monday, after then-President Donald Trump’s tough crackdown brought immigration to a near halt.
The official 10-year count estimated that 331,449,281 million people lived in the country on April 1, 2020 which was a 7.4 percent rise from 2010.
The 10-year expansion was significantly slower than the previous decade, when the population grew 9.7 percent, and was barely above the record low of 7.3 percent over 1930-1940, when the United States and the world were mired in the Great Depression.
The rate accelerated with the “baby boom” after World War II. But since the early 1950s it has been in a fairly steady decline. That was only interrupted for a few years in the 1990s when millions of migrants, mostly Mexicans, entered the country without documents and stayed.
Since then, data shows the dropoff has been sharp.
In the past decade, researchers have said that the deep, yearlong economic slump from the 2008 financial crisis contributed to the slowdown, with a lower birth rate and with many Mexican migrants returning to their country.
In addition, after he became president in 2017, Trump sought to sharply cut legal immigration and halt illegal immigration completely.
The region showing the largest growth since 2010 was the south. That was followed by the west.
Arid, heavily desert Utah in the west had the fastest growing population of the 50 states, gaining 18.4 percent, while mountainous West Virginia in the east fell 3.2 percent.
The Census Bureau released the broad numbers on Monday, as a basis for reapportioning seats in the 435-member US House of Representatives.
In all, 13 states will either gain or lose seats, with California, the largest by population, losing one of its 53.
The census was taken under a cloud of politics, with Trump trying to reverse past practice and force the agency not to count undocumented or non-citizen residents.
It was also severely hampered by the coronavirus pandemic.
“Trying to count people in a global pandemic made it even more challenging,” said Ron Jarmin, acting director of the Census Bureau.
