California population in 2022 is estimated to be 38.9 million residents, its most populous state in US as on across a total state area of 163,696 square miles (423,970 sq km), its 11th most densest and area rank is 3rd. state abbreviation is 'CA') is a western state of United States, borders Nevada and Arizona to the east, Oregon to the north, Pacific Coast in the west. “Whereas, before, it was more about envy.”ĭustin Gardiner (he/him) is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer.States by Population California PopulationĬalifornia (U.S. “In some senses, California has become the state that others love to hate,” McCuan said. He said it’s a stark shift from five or six years ago, when it was conceivable to project that the state would have more than 40 million residents by now. Last year, the state lost a representative in Congress for the first time in the state’s history, because its population grew more slowly than the rest of the country as a whole in the last Census.ĭavid McCuan, a political scientist at Sonoma State University, said California’s population loss is, in part, a result of the state facing a barrage of negative-PR attacks that have put concerns about housing and quality-of-life issues at the center of the national narrative about California. State leaders are already battling perceptions that a lack of housing, the soaring cost of living, crime rates, catastrophic wildfires and other crises are causing a Golden State exodus. While the overall population loss has been slight as a percentage, the issue presents an existential challenge for California. The pandemic just completely killed immigration.”Ĭheck the water shortage status of your area, plus see reservoir levels and a list of restrictions for the Bay Area’s largest water districts. “That was always the way of back-filling people we lost to other states,” McGhee said. That population shift was typically offset by foreign immigration, but the amount of immigrants coming has dropped due to the pandemic and federal policies: California had a net gain of 43,300 immigrants last year, compared with an average of 140,000 before COVID hit. Historically speaking, McGheee said California has often lost more residents to domestic out-migration than it’s gained over the last three decades, largely due to the cost of housing. He said, however, that the level of out-migration to other states coupled with a steep drop in international immigration is driving the state’s decline. McGhee said several of the trends driving down California’s population numbers, such as declining birth rates and an aging population, are playing out in the rest of the country, as well. The state’s growth has been slowing for decades as the birth rate declines and fewer people are migrating to California from both other states and other countries. Meanwhile, nearly every county on the coast saw declines, with the exception of counties along the Central Coast. Yolo and San Benito counties grew by more than 1%. Population growth remained strongest in the inland counties of the Central Valley, where construction of single-family homes has lured new residents. The state’s population last grew by about 0.2%, or 87,494 people, in 2019. The Finance Department said the population dip reflects a host of factors: a slowdown in the birth rate while deaths increase as Baby Boomers age, a surge in deaths from the COVID-19 pandemic, increased out-migration to other states and a drop in foreign immigration due to federal delays processing migrants.Ĭalifornia’s population has now dropped to 39,185,605, down from a peak of 39,538,223 in early 2020, according to the U.S. “I think we’re going to be settling into a new reality of slow population growth, or negative population loss.” We were always historically the state that grew a lot,” Eric McGhee, a senior fellow at the Public Policy Institute of California, said of two years of population decline. That said, the rate of the decline slowed from 2020, when state officials estimated the population decreased by 0.46%, a net loss of 182,083 people. The state Department of Finance released new annual population estimates Monday that show California’s overall population decreased by 0.3% in 2021, only the second year since data collection began in 1900 that the state saw an overall decline.
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