After near-paralysis during the worst of the recession, Americans are increasingly on the move and a lot of them are coming to Georgia.
The state's population grew by 110,973 between 2015 and 2016 – the seventh-largest surge in the nation, according to data collected and analyzed by the U.S. Census Bureau and released Tuesday.
By mid-2016, there were 10,310,371 people in Georgia, the bureau said.
Texas added the most folks – about 433,000 people – followed by Florida, California, Washington and Arizona. The fastest-growing state in the South was North Carolina, which just barely outpaced Georgia, adding 111,602 during the year.
“States in the South and West continued to lead in population growth,” said Ben Bolender, chief of the Population Estimates Branch. “In 2016, 37.9 percent of the nation’s population lived in the South and 23.7 percent lived in the West.”
For details and various Census data, click here.
Six states lost population in the past year: Pennsylvania, Wyoming, Connecticut, Vermont, Illinois and West Virginia, according to the Census Bureau.
Percentage-wise, the fastest growing state was Utah, which grew 2.03 percent in one year.
Economics is clearly a big part of the story. The states that have lost population over the past several decades tend to be economically depressed. And changes in economics move the needle on population.
North Dakota had been the fastest-growing state for four years running, largely on the strength of the boom in oil production. But the state dropped out of the top 10 this past year, as a result oil prices crashed and many oil rigs shut down.
Since 2010, just three states have lost population, none in the West or South: Vermont, Illinois and West Virginia, the bureau said.
In those six year, Georgia has added 621,691 people – a 6.4 percent expansion of the population. That compares to a national increase in that time of 14.4 million people, a 4.7 percent.
In late 2010, the Georgia unemployment rate was 10.5 percent — which did not include thousands of people who had left the workforce and stopped looking for a job. The current rate is 5.3 percent — and that includes a surge of people who have recently entered the workforce.
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Top 10 States in Numeric Growth: 2015 to 2016
………………………………. 2016 population ……. Amount of growth
1 Texas …………………. 27,862,596 ………… 432,957
2 Florida ………………… 20,612,439 ………… 367,525
3 California ……………. 39,250,017…………. 256,077
4 Washington …………. 7,288,000 …………. 127,710
5 Arizona ………………… 6,931,071 …………. 113,506
6 North Carolina …….10,146,788 ………… 111,602
7 Georgia …………….… 10,310,371 ………….110,973
8 Colorado …………… 5,540,545 …………….. 91,726
9 Oregon ……………..…4,093,465 ……………. 68,831
10 South Carolina ….…4,961,119 ……………. 66,285
Source: U.S. Census Bureau
