The country’s most populous state is growing again.
California’s population increased Last year, for the first time since 2019, according to a new estimate released Tuesday by Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration.
A net increase of just over 67,000 residents in 2023 – an increase of 0.17% – bucked a three-year trend of population decline, which included the state’s first year-over-year loss during the crucial 2020 census year that followed. happened in. California lost one congressional seat. The state estimates that California now has more than 39.1 million residents.
Newsom administration They attributed the decline to a combination of increased death rates during the coronavirus pandemic, declining birth rates and a slowdown in legal international immigration due to the pandemic and stricter immigration rules during the administration of President Donald Trump.
California has faced major population declines and stagnation over the past three years, but the state is seeing growth for the first time since 2019 after the report estimates the state will grow by 30.1 million residents. (David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
But critics point to an increase in the number of people leaving California for other states, interpreting it as residents fed up with high taxes, a large homeless population and a housing shortage while Democrats were in power.
There were still more people leaving California in 2023 than moving here from other states, but it was much lower than in previous years. In 2021 — when the coronavirus was still surging and more people were turning to remote work — California lost a total of 355,648 people due to domestic migration.
In 2023 — with the pandemic ending and companies placing more emphasis on returning to office workplaces — 91,189 more people moved away from California than moved out of the state. According to Walter Schwarm, chief demographer for the California Department of Finance, this number is very close to pre-pandemic trends.
“We saw an increase at the beginning of the pandemic because there were a certain number of people who moved out of the state with the ability to work remotely, but we’ve seen that trend reverse,” said HD Palmer, a California spokesperson. ” finance department.
Meanwhile, development from legal international immigration — which has been California’s growth engine for decades — rebounded in 2023 with a net gain of 114,200 people, or back to roughly the same level as before the pandemic.
“With immigration processing backlogs largely eliminated and deaths returning to long-term trends, a stable base for continued growth has returned,” the Treasury Department said in a news release announcing the estimate.
California’s economy has shown signs of stress recently. The state is in the midst of a persistent multibillion-dollar budget deficit due to declining state tax revenues. Californian unemployment rate 5.3%, which is above the national average and the highest of any state. And the state’s giant technology industry has been beset by layoffs as companies grapple with a slowdown in investment.
Despite this, population increased in 31 of California’s 58 counties – including nine of the 10 counties with populations over 1 million. Los Angeles County – the nation’s most populous with more than 9 million residents – had a modest increase of 0.05%, while nearby Orange County increased by 0.31%.
California’s population had been growing rapidly since statehood in 1850, as the gold rush increased the number of people crossing the border to seek their fortunes in the West. The state experienced a significant boom due to the growing aerospace industry after World War II and then the technology boom in Silicon Valley in the 1980s and 90s.
By 2019, California was in danger of breaking the 40 million population threshold. But that milestone was never accomplished as the state began a population decline in 2020.
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The California Department of Finance releases two population estimates each year: one for the previous calendar year and one for the previous fiscal year, which runs from July 1 to June 30. The estimate released Tuesday was for the previous calendar year, projecting the state’s population through Jan. 1, 2024.
California bases its estimates on several factors, including births and deaths, changes in driver’s license addresses, vehicle registrations and enrollment in the government-funded health insurance programs Medicaid and Medicare.
US Census data released in December showed California’s population as of July 1, 2023, was 38.9 million. The Newsom administration’s estimate is higher, he said, because it includes more updated data from driver’s license changes and tax filings.
