The U.S. Census Bureau released a report of population trends in 2023 that found that the U.S. added 1.6 million people and 30% of those people chose Texas as their new home state.
According to the bureau’s report, at the state level, this year many states saw the highest growth since the start of the pandemic. Especially in the southern states which accounted for 87% of the nation’s growth with over 1.4 million new residents. According to the report, the South was the only region in the country to have maintained its population growth throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2023, the bureau found that over 700,000 people moving to the South can be attributed to domestic migration while the net international migration added less than 500,000 people to the total.
Texas alone added 473,453 people this year, the largest numeric change in the nation, followed by Florida with 365,205 residents.
At the national level, population growth rates have not yet recovered from the pandemic, the census registered a persistent increase since 2021 when the population grew 0.2%, then 0.4% in 2022 and now 0.5% in 2023.
As pointed out in the report, the reasons behind the population growth may not be as clear as one could think. While migration is still a major contributor to the trend, a significant drop in deaths since the pandemic also impacted these numbers.
“U.S. migration returning to pre-pandemic levels and a drop in deaths are driving the nation’s growth,” said Kristie Wilder, a demographer in the population division at the Census Bureau. “Although births declined, this was tempered by the near 9% decrease in deaths. Ultimately, fewer deaths paired with rebounding immigration resulted in the nation experiencing its largest population gain since 2018.”
The most recent state-to-state migration flow data shows that the top 5 states new Texas residents are moving include California at the top, with Texas as the number 1 destination for residents leaving the state. Following next are Florida, Louisiana, Georgia and Illinois which combined added 113,707 new residents to the Lone Star state in 2019.
