2010 Census Released Today

[AlabamaNomadRider]

2010 Census: US Growth Slowest Since DepressionDec 21, 2010 – 12:57 PM

Andrea Stone
Senior Washington Correspondent

WASHINGTON -- The number of Americans reached 308,745,538 people this year, rising 9.7 percent in the first decade of the 21st century for the slowest growth rate since the Great Depression, according to figures released today from the 2010 census.

The 23rd decennial population count, required by the Constitution, will be used to divvy up 435 House seats for the 113th Congress, which will convene in 2013. As in recent reapportionments, states in the South and West will gain at the expense of those in the Northeast and Midwest. Since 1940, 79 seats in Congress have shifted from the older regions of the Northeast and Midwest to the Sun Belt and Western states.

In addition to determining political clout, the data will be used to allocate more than $400 billion in federal spending to the states for education, senior services, housing, law enforcement and transportation.


Win McNamee, Getty Images
Robert Groves, director of the U.S. Census Bureau, announces the first results of the 2010 Census during a news conference Tuesday in Washington.
Census Bureau Director Robert Groves, who kicked off the population count in January when he arrived by dogsled at a remote Alaskan village above the Arctic Circle, made the announcement with the help of a big board that flashed the numbers and lacked only a drum roll for drama.

He noted that the growth rate over 2000, when there were 281.4 million Americans, was the second lowest of the past century. Only the 1930s, when the country's population grew by just 7.3 percent, saw a slower expansion. Groves would not pin the slowdown on the Great Recession as others have but said it was in line with trends in other developed countries.

Jeff Passel, a demographer at the Pew Hispanic Center, said despite the sluggish growth rate, compared with Europe, Japan and the rest of the developed world, "we're growing very rapidly. It's only slow in comparison to our history but we're growing at about 1 percent a year, and a lot of European countries are actually shrinking."

Groves said about 60 percent of the extra 28 million Americans came from natural growth and 40 percent from immigration, legal and otherwise.

The South, already the largest of the four regions in population, grew the most, 14.3 percent. The West followed with a rate of 13.8 percent. The slowest growth was in the Northeast, with an anemic 3.2 percent growth rate. The Midwest was only marginally better at 3.9 percent.

Texas, the only state that once was its own country, got more to brag about. It beat out California for the biggest numerical increase of any state by gaining nearly 4.3 million people.

The Lone Star state will get four new representatives, the biggest congressional pickup of any state. One of those seats used to belong to Louisiana, which lost a seat after being slammed first by Hurricane Katrina and then by a mass exodus to surrounding states.

"Texas is the last man standing in a rough decade when the country had its lowest growth since the Great Depression. Its growth came from immigration, migration from the rest of the U.S. and heavily from Hispanics," said William Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution.

"Overall, the Sun Belt continued to gain, but aside from Texas and Florida, much of its gain came to 'little Sun Belt' states as the population continues to spread into the Southeast and Mountain West."

The five fastest-growing states were Nevada, Arizona, Utah, Idaho and Texas. Nevada had the highest rate of growth, 35.1 percent. At the other end of the growth spectrum, Michigan, Rhode Island, Louisiana, Ohio and New York saw the most sluggish growth.

The biggest loser was Michigan, the only state to lose population with a decline of 0.6 percent. The territory of Puerto Rico also lost people, declining 2.2 percent. No states in the 2000 census lost population, though four reported declines in 1990.

Another "loser" is North Carolina, which Groves said lost out to Minnesota for the 435th seat apportioned. Neither state gained or lost seats in Congress.

Other findings:

The five largest states by population are California, Texas, New York, Florida and Illinois. New York is the only state that has ranked in the top five since the first census in 1790.
The five least populous states are Wyoming, Vermont, North Dakota, Alaska and South Dakota.
The Northeast maintains its 40-year run as the most densely populated region. Five of the original 13 states -- New Jersey, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Connecticut and Maryland -- have the most people per square mile. The states with some of the largest land mass -- Alaska, Wyoming, Montana, North Dakota and South Dakota -- are the most sparsely populated.
The geographic population center of the country continues to move west and south. In 1790, it was in Kent County, Md. Today it is in southern Missouri and, while the census has not done the calculations, may be heading south toward Arkansas.
Eighteen states will see their congressional delegations grow or shrink as 12 seats shift. Besides Texas, the biggest gainer is Florida, which picks up two House seats. Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, South Carolina, Utah and Washington will each pick up a seat.

The biggest losers are New York and Ohio. Each will lose two seats. Eight states will give up one seat: Illinois, Iowa, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

The Census Bureau, which came in nearly $1.9 billion under its $7.4 billion budget this year, will release more detailed data about race, ethnicity and households beginning in February.
Filed under: Nation Tagged: 2010 census, 2010 census results, alaska, arizona, california, congress, florida, gary locke, georgia, great depression, house, idaho, illinois, iowa, louisiana, massachusetts, michigan, midwest, missouri, nevada, new jersey, new york, north dakota, northeast, ohio, pennsylvania, population, population growth, rhode island, robert groves, south, south carolina, south dakota, texas, us census, us census bureau, utah, vermont, washington, wyoming
Related Searches: us population statistics, united states census for 2010, us census bureau 2010, census population for 2010, united states census bureau,

[nomadtom69]

Bet they did not count our friends from south of the border

[AlabamaNomadRider]

Tom I am sure they missed a bunch of those. Probably in the hundreds of thousands.

[Loafer]

I thought with the lack of jobs, they would go back south. No?

[nomadtom69]

Thats the problem they have the jobs and are not going south so the US citizens do not have jobs

[Loafer]

Originally Posted by nomadtom69

Thats the problem they have the jobs and are not going south so the US citizens do not have jobs

I thought that the legal residents were having a hard time. So they would be doing their own lawm mowing, tree pruning, house painting and so on. Thus there wouldn't be those kinds of jobs available. And they would move back home.
That is not the case?

[AlabamaNomadRider]

They haven't yet. I don't foresee it happening either. Lots of chicken plants around the south. Somebody has got to pluck those chickens.

[ringadingh]

One of the main reasons that they come, is that they will do the crap jobs that no one else wants to do.