Why Your State Is Growing or Stalling or Shrinking
As U.S. population growth slows, more states depend on immigration.
From the article:
The debate over immigration has economic and moral components, but there’s also a demographic aspect: Many parts of America would be shrinking if not for the arrival of residents from other countries.
State-by-state population estimates recently released by the Census Bureau make this clear. Four states lost population in the last decade, but nine others would have also shrunk if not for the addition of foreign-born residents.
Like other Northeastern states, Massachusetts depends on immigration to sustain growth. But unlike its neighbors — immigration is down by a third in New York — Massachusetts sustained international growth through most of the decade. The difference lies in the state’s thriving university and tech sector, which brings in a larger proportion of high-skilled immigrants. Boston also had an influx of millennials during the decade, which helped offset the flow of older residents to other states. Massachusetts alone accounted for more than half of the population growth in the Northeast during the decade. “The growth that we saw with the millennial wave, can that be sustained?” said Susan Strate, a demographer at the UMass Donahue Institute. “Coupled with a decrease in the international migration that made us strong growers in recent years, it’s a pivotal point in Massachusetts.”
Read article: Why Your State Is Growing or Stalling or Shrinking
January 09, 2020
