U.S. population growth is taking off—not just from new births but from people migrating to America.
Key Details
- The resident population of the U.S. grew by 0.4% in 2022, according to the Census Bureau, a big jump from the 0.1% growth of 2021.
- The U.S. now contains 333.3 million people, with 1.3 million joining this year.
- A good apportion of the population growth is the U.S. having more births than deaths this year, gaining around 245,000 citizens— but that isn’t the main factor.
- The main population driver was migration bringing in more than 1 million people to the U.S.—marking a 169% jump in migration numbers from the year before.
Why it’s news
The U.S. population has grown this year, growing 0.4%, a significant jump from the 0.1% last year.
America now has 333.3 million residents, with more than 1.3 million joining this year.
The U.S. had more births than deaths this year, bringing in around 245,000 new residents. This year’s birth rate was the “largest year-over-year increase in total births since 2007,” according to Kristie Wilder, a demographer in the Population Division at the Census Bureau.
The new births helped add a large number of new citizens, but the main driving factor behind the big population growth—migration. More than 1 million new citizens migrated to the U.S. this year, causing a 169% jump in migration numbers from the year before.
The pandemic caused migration numbers to decline significantly, dropping to the lowest level in decades as many borders were closed to limit transmission of COVID-19.
This year’s high levels of migration are still relatively small by historical standards. The year 2020 was the first time since 2003 when fewer than 1 million legal immigrants entered the U.S. However, about 1 million illegal immigrants entered the country in 2021, more than double the number of 2019.