Census: NY leads nation in yearly population loss

New York State led the nation — for the second straight year — in population loss in the 12 months ending July 1, decreasing by 180,341, according to estimates released Thursday by the U.S. Census Bureau.

While the Census Bureau does not measure people's reasons for departing the Empire State, several population analysts said they see the loss as a continuation of departures spurred by the COVID-19 pandemic, especially from New York City.

"New York clearly saw a big effect from COVID. New York City lost a lot of people who moved out to be safe," said Jan Vink, a researcher at Cornell University's Program on Applied Demographics. "This affects high-density areas such as New York City and its suburbs."

New York led the country not only in the number of people lost, but also in the percentage of loss, the census data said. New York's loss of 0.9% of its population — from 19,857,492 to 19,677,151 — was largely driven by the fact that 299,557 more people moved out of the state versus moved in during that time period, the data said. 

The census figures only address statewide population, and the agency expects to drill down to county-by-county numbers in the spring. Figures released this past spring showed Long Island's foreign-born population continued to grow, reflecting the Island's growing racial and ethnic diversity.

A total of 18 states saw their population decrease during this period. The second-largest decline was in California, whose population dropped by 113,649, the data showed.

New York has long been a leader in population loss, even apart from the pandemic-prompted spike, said E.J. McMahon, founding senior fellow at the Empire Center for Public Policy. He pointed to the state's high cost of living, among other factors.

"Housing, crime, taxes, cost of living — in New York, they are all negatives," McMahon said.

It's common for young people to move from New York City to a suburb once they start a family, but the pandemic hastened many of those plans, McMahon said.

"They decided to do it now. The interest rates were down, maybe they had a little more money" and they could more easily work from home, he said.

International immigration into the state dropped during the Trump presidency, due to policies and the coming of the pandemic, but the numbers showed an increase in the past year, McMahon said. 

This most recent year saw 77,923 immigrants entering the state, a big increase over the prior year's figure of 18,307, the figures showed. In the 2018-19 report, that number was 41,869, according to census figures.

The census immigration figures do not identify how many were immigrants in the country without legal permission.

Nationally, the U.S. population expanded by 1.2 million people this year, with growth largely driven by international migration, and the nation now has 333.2 million residents, the figures said.

Net international migration — the number of people moving into the U.S. minus the number of people leaving — was more than 1 million residents from 2021 to 2022. That represented a growth rate of 168% over the previous year's 376,029 international migrants, with every state gaining residents from abroad, according to the vintage 2022 population estimates.

This year's U.S. annual growth rate of 0.4% was a rebound of sorts from the 0.1% growth rate during the worst of the pandemic from 2020 to 2021, which was the lowest since the nation's founding.

Regionally, the Northeast lost almost 219,000 people in a trend largely driven by domestic residents moving out of New York, New Jersey and Massachusetts, the figures said.

With AP

By Craig Schneider

craig.schneider@newsday.comScraigo

Craig Schneider is a Long Island native and Stony Brook University alumnus. He joined Newsday as a general assignment reporter in January 2018 after 20 years at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.