Immigration played a significant role this year in driving U.S. population growth to its highest rate in 23 years.
The U.S. population surpassed 340 million people, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s annual population estimate.
The big picture: The population growth rate of almost 1% in 2024 was the highest since 2001 and a stark contrast to the record low of 0.2% in 2021 during the height of pandemic travel restrictions.
- Immigration saw an increase of almost 2.8 million people, with net international migration accounting for 84% of the nation’s 3.3 million person increase between 2023 and 2024.
- The increase in population due to immigration had a significant impact at both the national and state levels, with immigration accounting for all of the growth in 16 states that would have otherwise experienced population declines.
Zoom in: Births in the U.S. outnumbered deaths by almost 519,000 between 2023 and 2024, an improvement over the historic low of 146,000 in 2021, but still below previous decades’ levels.
- The South was the fastest-growing region in the U.S. in 2024, adding more new residents (1.8 million people) than all other regions combined, with Texas adding the most people at 562,941 followed by Florida with 467,347 new residents.
- California and New York, which had seen declines in population earlier in the decade, added residents in 2024 primarily due to immigration growth, with California adding 232,570 people and New York adding 129,881 people.
Zoom out: The U.S. population center shifted significantly southward in the past decade, as more people moved to Sunbelt states like Florida and Texas from coastal urban states.
- Changes in immigration patterns were reflected in adjustments to population estimates, particularly in capturing immigrants entering the U.S. through humanitarian parole, a method that had been utilized for decades but not fully accounted for in the Census Bureau’s previous surveys.
- The Census Bureau’s revised immigration estimates have recalculated last year’s figures to include an additional 1.1 million immigrants, aligning more closely with estimates from other federal agencies like the Congressional Budget Office.
