According to recently released statistics in 2024 by the U.S. Census Bureau, America has approximately 333.2 million inhabitants after its population grew by 1.2 million this year, mostly due to overseas migration. U.S. Census Bureau's updated Vintage in 2024 estimated that the country's population increased by nearly 1.0% between 3 and 2024. This marks the fastest annual population growth the country has experienced since 2001 exceeding 340 million people. It is a significant improvement from the record low growth rate of 0.2% in2021. The increase in net international migration was the driver of this.
Record High Foreign Migration
For example, foreigners entering the United States account for less than the number of persons departing is known as net international migration, and it exceeded one million between 2021 and 2022. Population numbers also estimated that in 2022 there was a 168% increase over the 376,029 foreign migrants from the previous year, with foreign residents increasing in every state. In what was the first year-over-year increase in total births since 2007, natural growth—the sum of births less deaths—added an additional 245,080 individuals to the total.
"The increase probably could have been higher in the last decade than it was,” says demographer William Frey, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. “This increase hasn’t been as big as it's been in some of the earlier decades, particularly 1990 to 2000.”
Census numbers show that the education levels of foreign-born people living in the United States is increasing. In 2010, 68% of people in this group completed high school or higher, while in 2022, that number jumped to 75%
U.S. foreign-born population rose from 19 million to 31 million, a hike of 12 million, from 1990 to 2000. By contrast, the same group increased just 6.2 million, from 40 million to 46.2 million during the 2010-2022 period.
Frey said the slower growth in certain areas of population can possibly be traced to obvious factors.
“The Trump administration reduced some of the immigration levels with various aspects of their policy, and then, of course, the pandemic,” he says. “But then, at the very tip of the end of this period, it started to go up again, but we're not really going to see the bulk of that until next year or the year after, when they come out [with] the next couple of reports.” Despite early indications that the immigration population grew at a faster rate in 2023."
Frey expects slower overall population growth in the future.
"Especially among the younger population. In order to improve the labor force prospects, in order to generate more people coming into the labor force, we're going to have to increase our immigration,” he says. “That's very political, but I think a sensible economic way to look at it would be to make sure we continue to have reasonable levels of immigration.”
Immigration By State
Here are the states with the majority immigrants:
- California (26.5%)
- New Jersey (23.2%)
- New York (22.6%)
- Florida (21.1%)
- Texas (17.2%)
- foreign-born people account for more than one-fifth of the population in these states.
The U.S. experienced a modest rebound in its annual growth rate this year, reaching 0.4% compared to the 0.1% growth rate seen during the peak of the pandemic from 2020 to 2021. These numbers represent the lowest growth rate since the establishment of the nation.
Amidst the regional demographic shifts, the Northeast faced a decline of approximately 219,000 residents. Such decline was primarily fueled by domestic residents relocating out of states like New York, New Jersey, and Massachusetts, and by a situation where deaths surpassed births in Pennsylvania. Similarly, the Midwest saw a decrease of nearly 49,000 residents, largely impacted by individuals moving away from Illinois and a scenario where deaths exceed births in Ohio.
Down South Reaped Bigger Numbers
Texas and Florida saw population increases of nearly half a million each, contributing to the South's greatest gain of 1.3 million persons. Texas, which is the second most populous state in the United States, became the only other state to have more than 30 million residents, after California.
In 2022, California's population was slightly over 39 million, having lost over 113,000 residents, the largest annual fall behind New York's loss of over 180,000 residents. Over 343,000 domestic residents leaving California were the main cause of the population drop, which reduced the population growth in the West area to just 153,000 people.
Voice of America reported in an online article that without international migration and a sizable natural increase of births outpacing deaths, the Western region would have lost population because of domestic residents also moving out of Oregon and Washington.
Puerto Rico experienced a decrease of 40,000 residents, constituting approximately 1.3% of its population, due to a combination of outward migration and a higher number of deaths compared to births. As a result, the current population of Puerto Rico stands at 3.2 million residents.
Senior NewsBlaze Reporter Clarence Walker can be reached at [email protected]