More People Moving to U.S.: Immigration jumps, causing the population to grow faster even as the birthrate falls.
The pace of the nation’s population growth inched higher this year for the first time since 2006, boosted by a larger number of immigrants amid improving U.S. prospects.
In its annual state population estimates, the Census Bureau said Thursday that there were 313.9 million people in the United States on July 1. That is up 2.3 million from a year earlier, a growth rate of 0.75%.
Although that pace is still very slow by historical standards, it nonetheless marks a tiny increase after several years of declines, in which the growth rate had fallen to a level not seen since the 1930s.
And the increase of immigrants is one more indication that the powerful effects of the Great Recession are ebbing because immigration tends to rise when the U.S. job market improves.
California’s population rose at a slightly higher rate of 0.95%. Even as California lost more residents to other states, it had a net gain of 357,500 people, thanks to immigration and the natural increase — more births than deaths.
With 38 million residents as of July 1, California remains the most populous state in the nation. It had about 12 million more people than No. 2 Texas, which once again saw the biggest numerical increase in population of all states.
This year’s uptick in the U.S. population growth rate came entirely from a jump in immigration.