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In actuality if you take into account the population gain and loss from the pre-revision 2017 numbers to the 2018 numbers, then California only added (+) 20,400 people; New York declined by (-) 307,000 people; Texas gained (+) 397,000 people; Florida gained (+) 314,000 people; Illinois declined by (-) 60,000 people; and Pennsylvania stayed flat (2017: 12,805,537 / 2018: 12,807,060).
The bigger story to ponder over is why California has slowed to a crawl and why New York is now leading the United States in raw number population decline. From July 1, 2017 (post-revision numbers) to July 1, 2018 the state of New York declined -48,000 people.
Simple: people have been fleeing NY the past couple of years due to either taxes, weather, or insane COL. And I mean fleeing. Even Long Island and NYC suburbs have ground to a halt. Manhattan is a playground for the 1%, and the rest of the city is following in its footsteps. Consider this: since 2010, NYS has lost 1.2 million to other states.
CA to me is no surprise at all. Living there, I'm aware of many people leaving the state, especially retirees that are cashing out on their homes and moving to TX, NV, Arizona. The younger Hispanic population increases constantly and makes up some of the difference, but currently it's not enough to balance those that leave.
Few middle class people from across the country move to CA from other states. The jobs are there, but for many it's not affordable mostly due to the high price of housing. You can't easily sell a home in Pennsylvania or Ohio and buy another comparable one in CA, at least not where the jobs are.
Simple: people have been fleeing NY the past couple of years due to either taxes, weather, or insane COL. And I mean fleeing. Even Long Island and NYC suburbs have ground to a halt. Manhattan is a playground for the 1%, and the rest of the city is following in its footsteps. Consider this: since 2010, NYS has lost 1.2 million to other states.
I notice that New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago along with New York, California, and Illinois tend to have weak population growth during times when the national economy is booming and other places are prospering and growing rapidly.
Observe with the Greater Los Angeles MSA and the state of California below.
Notice how Los Angeles MSA actually was declining from 2005 to 2007, it was at the same time the United States' national economy was in a period of a superboom (the kind of boom the United States will never have again). Then Los Angeles went back to growing in 2008 when the world economy crashed due to the Great Recession, the reason was that the recession decimated the financial and housing industries, so it kept people from moving, thus the domestic out-migration was null and void during the recession. As housing prices dropped precipitously around the world, people felt safer waiting it out and staying where they were instead of moving somewhere and investing in housing that would lose value. As the United States began recovering more and more, both Los Angeles and California began to decelerate even more as the Great Recession was left further and further back in the rear-view mirror. This is the same phenomena as Illinois (Chicago) and New York (New York). These places, at least when it comes to population growth, tend to suffer when the rest of the country is outright booming. This is probably attributed to their runaway real-estate prices, when the national economy is in a state of boom, New York and Los Angeles reach excruciating levels of unaffordable costs, thus making their outward migration flows larger and larger and consequently it makes their population growth lower and lower each passing year.
Los Angeles MSA reached stagnation just last year since its year-over-year population growth fell to a mere + 25,000 for an MSA of 13 million people but the 2018 numbers when they come out next March have a high chance of posting decline for Los Angeles MSA. If it posts any growth at all, it will be even lower than the + 25,000 it gained last year since both the state and Los Angeles MSA have trended towards deceleration each passing year, a state of even further deceleration. I think it will post modest decline, California's new 2018 numbers show + 157,000 people since 2017, that's the lowest in every person's lifetime that is a member of this forum and Los Angeles has a huge hand in California's large-scale deceleration because it is by far the largest place in California.
The irony is that the Great Recession actually helped some places grow their population even more because it prevented out-migration. Now that the United States is booming and the Great Recession is far back in the rearview mirror and both the financial and housing industries are growing, these places are bleeding domestic migrants with more ferocity each passing year.
Chicago doesn't have runaway real estate prices though. A lot of the metro has yet to even see their home prices return to pre-recession levels.
What's ailing Chicagoland is frankly the state Illinois. The state is financially on the brink, its credit rating is one notch above junk status, and taxes will only be going up for the foreseeable future as services continue to decline. Unless Governor Elect Pritzker pulls off a miracle, we're going to see what happens when a state, which cannot legally declare bankruptcy, runs out of money. I also have little faith that we're going to see the needed constitutional amendments to allow for a graduated income tax and a renegotiation of the pensions.
Chicago doesn't have runaway real estate prices though. A lot of the metro has yet to even see their home prices return to pre-recession levels.
What's ailing Chicagoland is frankly the state Illinois. The state is financially on the brink, its credit rating is one notch above junk status, and taxes will only be going up for the foreseeable future as services continue to decline. Unless Governor Elect Pritzker pulls off a miracle, we're going to see what happens when a state, which cannot legally declare bankruptcy, runs out of money. I also have little faith that we're going to see the needed constitutional amendments to allow for a graduated income tax and a renegotiation of the pensions.
Is it metro Chicago or is it Downstate? We will find out in March
If you look at components of change, net migration actually improved a bit since 2017. However, international migration fell from 130,000 to 70,000. Not good considering immigration numbers were driving upstate growth.
This aspect may be indicative of extraneous variables/perceptions not unique to New York and beyond their control. *sighs to refrain further commentary*
I'm surprised that not a single person yet has reported on the census revisions to the 2017 numbers. The lot of it is extremely shocking. Each year when the census bureau releases their population estimates they also revise the previous year's population estimate either upward or downward if they find evidence that they have been over-counting or under-counting places.
Please pay close attention to the detail in the three lists below. I'll be posting three lists: the first will be the 2017 census estimates that were reported last year; the second will be the 2017 census estimates that were released today as upward and/or downward revisions; and the third will be the 2018 census estimates that came out today.
State population for 2017 (pre-revision/released 1 year ago):
01. California: 39,536,653
02. Texas: 28,304,596
03. Florida: 20,984,400
04. New York: 19,849,399
05. Pennsylvania: 12,805,537
06. Illinois: 12,802,023
07. Ohio: 11,658,609
08. Georgia:10,429,379
09. North Carolina: 10,273,419
10. Michigan: 9,962,311
State population for 2017 (post-revision/released today):
01. California: 39,399,349
02. Texas: 28,322,717
03. Florida: 20,976,812
04. New York: 19,590,719
05. Pennsylvania: 12,790,447
06. Illinois: 12,786,196
07. Ohio: 11,664,129
08. Georgia: 10,413,055
09. North Carolina: 10,270,800
10. Michigan: 9,976,447
State population for 2018 (released today):
01. California: 39,557,045
02. Texas: 28,701,845
03. Florida: 21,299,325
04. New York: 19,542,209
05. Pennsylvania: 12,807,060
06. Illinois: 12,741,080
07. Ohio: 11,689,442
08. Georgia: 10,519,475
09. North Carolina: 10,383,620
10. Michigan: 9,995,915
Take an extra careful look at California and New York on all three lists. California's 2017 numbers were revised downward by -137,000 people. In addition to that, California's + 157,000 from the newly released 2018 numbers is the lowest it has added in a year since the 1940s. The next lowest year for California was 2006 with + 193,259. It does not appear that California will be reaching 40 million by the 2020 census, it is way off course now. The state of New York's 2017 numbers were revised downward by nearly -260,000 people. On a brighter note, Michigan is doing pretty well now.
When the numbers for metropolitan areas come out in March of 2019, there will likely be population decline for the New York MSA, Los Angeles MSA, and Chicago MSA. If they avoid decline, then stagnation of barely any year-over-year growth.
So the pre and post revision differences for 2017 were:
Is it metro Chicago or is it Downstate? We will find out in March
My guess is both metro Chicago and other parts of Illinois are experiencing decline. Interesting to see that every other state in the Midwest is growing at least a little, including Michigan which was notoriously depressed a decade ago.
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. Not good considering immigration numbers were driving upstate growth.
