Florida and Idaho are America's fastest-growing states, according to data released by the U.S. Census Bureau. Their populations increased by 1.9 percent and 1.8 percent, respectively, causing them to rise to 22.2 million and 1.9 million from July 2021 to June 2022.
The two are followed by South Carolina, Texas and South Dakota. While Texas is seeing both a high number of births and high levels of national and international migration, domestic movement of people has been a major factor for Idaho, South Carolina and South Dakota to achieve population growth. In Florida, the state with the largest net birth deficit, it has been even more crucial (while aided by international migration).
As Statista's Katharina Buchholz details below, over the course of the pandemic, more states started to lose people due to excess deaths and new patterns of out-migration.
You will find more infographics at Statista
18 U.S. states decreased in population - some only slightly - between the 2021 and 2022, up from ten in between 2018 and 2019.
While states in the West or South had been attractive for new residents since before the pandemic because of low cost of living, low taxes and lower prices of housing, coastal states saw white color workers unmoored from their places of residence by remote work regimen seek out new (and often cheaper) living arrangements. Lower levels of Covid-19 restrictions in the South's or West's red states have also been named as a factor for some to move there.
Even before the coronavirus pandemic, New York had been among the states losing population - then due to a decline in immigration that used to make up for people moving away.
Over the course of the pandemic, even more people famously left the state, causing a deficit of -0.9 percent (previously -0.4 percent).
Populous states like California, Pennsylvania and Ohio only started to decrease in population during the pandemic, which coincided with increased population growth in the American South and West.
Texas, which previously grew by 1.3 percent, now increased in population by 1.6 percent - while Florida even stepped up from 1.1 percent to 1.9 percent.
Population winners in the West were Montana (0.8 percent growth to 1.5 percent) and South Dakota (0.7 percent to 1.5 percent).
