Dec. 22 (UPI) — A rise in births and a net increase in migration helped lift the U.S. resident population by 0.4%, or just over 1 million people, in 2022, data published Thursday by the Census Bureau show.
The resident population increased by 1.2 million people to reach 333.3 million in 2022 after the Census Bureau reported a historically low rate of change between 2020 and 2021, likely triggered by COVID-19 during the pre-vaccination stage of the pandemic.
“There was a sizeable uptick in population growth last year compared to the prior year’s historically low increase,” said Kristie Wilder, a demographer in the population division at the Census Bureau. “A rebound in net international migration, coupled with the largest year-over-year increase in total births since 2007, is behind this increase.”
Net migration — which the Census Bureau categorizes as people moving in and out of the country — added just over 1 million people to the U.S. population between 2021 and 2022, representing a 169% increase over 2021 levels.
Natural changes in population, a figure derived from adding up all the new births and subtracting deaths, added about a quarter million people to the U.S. population this year.
That figure does not factor in the expected lifespan for average Americans. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that life expectancy declined from 78.8 years in 2019, before the pandemic, to 76.4 last year.
That’s the shortest estimated U.S. life expectancy since 1996, the agency noted. The toll taken by COVID-19 — which has so far killed over 1.1 million Americans — is largely to blame for the decline.
But the CDC reports that fatal overdoses from illicit drugs such as fentanyl also rose sharply in 2021.
But that was last year and the overall situation is improving. Apart from the general increase in population from year-ago levels, the Census Bureau found people were seeking out warmer climates.
The southern U.S. remains the most populous region in the country, with a net 1.1% increase bringing the headcount to nearly 140 million people. Of those, some 22 million people are residing in Florida, which saw a 1.9% in population this year, the highest for any U.S. state.
Warmer weather on the West Coast was another draw, Census data show. It was the only other region in the country that saw a net increase in population this year, climbing 0.2% for a total resident population of close to 80 million people.
