Special Report
States Growing The Most Because People are Moving There: All 50 States Ranked
Published:
A state population can grow, or shrink, two ways: either by natural change or through net migration. Natural change means births less deaths, while net migration is the amount of people moving to an area minus the people moving out. The U.S. gained more than 1.6 million people this past year, growing by 0.5% to 334,914,895, according to the Census Bureau, through both natural change and migration.
The South is not only the nation’s most populous region, but it also accounted for 87% of the nation’s growth in 2023, as the region added over 1.4 million residents. Indeed if we also separate population growth to migration and natural change components, the fastest growing states tend to be in the South. (Here also are cities with the highest influx of new residents last year.)
To find the states that are growing fastest because people are moving there, 24/7 Wall St. reviewed the Census Bureau’s State Population Totals and Components of Change: 2020-2023 released December 2023. Using vintage 2023, we compared each state’s population growth components from July 1, 2022, to July 1, 2023, ranking the states by the percentage population growth from migration. All data is from the Census. (Interestingly, international migration includes armed forces movement.)
Among the 10 states growing the most through migration, seven are in the South, two in the Midwest, and one, surprisingly, in the Northeast — a region that has been losing residents. Among the four most populous states, New York and California have been losing residents, while Florida and Texas have been gaining them in droves. North and South Carolina, along with Florida, Delaware, and Tennessee are the top five growing states from migration alone. (Also see, America’s fastest growing counties.)
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