US population growth dipped to its lowest rate since the nation’s founding during the first year of the pandemic as the coronavirus curtailed immigration, delayed pregnancies and killed hundreds of thousands of US residents, according to figures released on Tuesday.

The United States grew by only 0.1 per cent, with an additional 3,92,665 added to the population from July 2020 to July 2021, according to estimates released by the US Census Bureau.

The US has been experiencing slow population growth for years but the pandemic exacerbated that trend. This past year was the first time since 1937 that the nation’s population grew by less than one million people.

“I was expecting low growth but nothing this low,” said William Frey, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution’s metropolitan policy program, Brookings Metro.

‘Population growth likely won’t bounce back’

“It tells us that this pandemic has had a huge impact on us in all kinds of ways, and now demography.” Once there’s a handle on the pandemic, the US may eventually see a decrease in deaths, but population growth likely won’t bounce back to what it has been in years past because of fewer births. That will increase the need for immigration by younger workers whose taxes can support programs such as Social Security, Frey said.

“We have an aging population and that means fewer women in child-bearing ages,” Frey said. “We see younger people putting off having children and they’re going to have fewer children.” The population estimates are derived from calculating the number of births, deaths and migration in the US. For the first time, international migration surpassed natural increases that come from births outnumbering deaths. There was a net increase of nearly 2,45,000 residents from international migration but only about 1,48,000 from new births outnumbering deaths.

‘Stunning’ decline

University of New Hampshire demographer Kenneth Johnson described the decline in natural population increase as “stunning,” saying it was the smallest spread of births over deaths in more than 80 years.

“Of course most of this is Covid, but not all of it,” Johnson said.

“US natural increase was already at a low ebb prior to Covid with the fertility rate hitting a new record low each year and deaths steadily rising due to the population aging.” Between 2020 and 2021, 33 States saw population increases, primarily through domestic migration, while 17 States and the District of Columbia lost population.

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States in the Mountain West saw the biggest year-over-year growth, with Idaho growing by almost three per cent, and Utah and Montana each seeing population increases of 1.7 per cent. The District of Columbia lost 2.9 per cent of its population, while New York and Illinois lost 1.6 per cent and 0.9 per cent of their populations, respectively.

While the pandemic gave some the option of working remotely, data released last month by the Census Bureau shows there was no great migration in the US because of it.

Some did take advantage of the opportunity, however. Tired of the heat, hurricane threats and traffic in Houston, tech worker Heidi Krueger moved to a small town south of Knoxville, Tennessee, in September. She can see the Great Smoky Mountains from her front porch.

“Because I was working from home, it made it feasible to move and still keep my same job,” Krueger said. “As long as I have internet, I can still connect to our clients.”