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Massachusetts added 9,868 people in the last year, according to new figures from the U.S. Census Bureau

The estimates released Monday tallied the population of Massachusetts, as of July 1, at 6,892,503 in 2019, up from an estimated 6,882,635, making it one of the 40 states whose population grew between 2018 and 2019.

Despite the overall increase, Massachusetts was one of 27 states that lost population through net domestic migration, the movement of people to other states. The biggest net domestic migration losses, in order, were in California (-203,414), New York (-180,649), Illinois (-104,986), New Jersey (-48,946), Massachusetts (-30,274) and Louisiana (-26,045). Of those six states, New York, Illinois, Louisiana and New Jersey lost population overall, while the domestic migration losses in Massachusetts and California were offset by other gains.

Domestic migration drove the population decrease in the Northeast, the Census Bureau said.

The region’s population declined by 63,817 people — about a tenth of a percent — to 55,982,803. Net domestic migration accounted for a loss of 294,331 people, more than were added to the population from natural increase, or births minus deaths, of 97,152, and by net international migration of 134,145.

The South, meanwhile, experienced the largest regional population growth from 2018 to 2019, rising by more than 1 million people to 125,580,448, primarily due to natural increase and domestic migration.

Nationally, net international migration has been declining since reaching a high for the decade in 2016.

The country’s population grew by half a percent, or more than 1.5 million people, to 328,239,523 in 2019. Annual growth peaked for the decade at 0.73 percent, between 2014 and 2015, the Census Bureau said.

“While natural increase is the biggest contributor to the U.S. population increase, it has been slowing over the last five years,” Sandra Johnson, a demographer and statistician in the bureau’s population division, said in a statement. “Natural increase, or when the number of births is greater than the number of deaths, dropped below 1 million in 2019 for the first time in decades.”

Forty-two states, including Massachusetts, had fewer births in 2019 than in 2018. The eight states with more births in 2019 were Washington, Utah, Nevada, Arizona, Idaho, Montana, Vermont and Colorado.

The Census Bureau plans to release 2019 population estimates for counties and municipalities, as well as national and state-level breakdowns by age, sex and race, in 2020. The 2019 estimates are the last official series to be released prior to the 2020 Census.

Massachusetts Added 10K Residents Last Year

by State House News Service time to read: 2 min
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