Three Takeaways from the Census Bureau’s New Population Estimates
Last week, the US Census Bureau released new estimates of the US population over the past five years. Overall, the US population rose by 0.5 percent (by 1.8 million) from mid-2024 to mid-2025, a sharp slowdown from the prior 12 months, when the population grew at double that rate at 1.0 percent. Below, I highlight three key takeaways from this report, with an emphasis on the long-term causes and consequences of US population trends.
What to Know:
1. A drop in net immigration dragged down population growth, and will likely continue to decline
The drop from 2024 to 2025 was largely driven by a sharp decline in net international immigration. Net immigration into the US fell from 2.7 million to 1.3 million from mid-2024 to mid-2025 (accounting for 70.1 percent of total US population growth), and the Census Bureau forecasts it will continue to fall to 321,000 in 2026, should current trends continue.
Net international immigration has been an increased driver of population growth over the past several decades: from 2000 to 2009, it accounted for 35.7 percent of total population growth, and then from 2010 to 2019 it made up 40.1 percent. Post-pandemic, from 2021 to 2024, it averaged 81.6 percent, peaking at 88.2 percent in 2022. The drop to 70.9 percent in 2025 thus represents in part a return to historic trends, but a continued decline to 321,000 would return net immigration to levels last seen (outside of 2020) in 2009.
2. Lower birth rates are slowing natural population growth
The second factor driving population growth is “natural population growth” – that is, births minus deaths. Those trends are largely stable year to year (outside major events, such as the COVID-19 pandemic), but are affected by long-term changes in fertility and mortality. Importantly, natural population growth has significantly declined over the past several decades. Two decades ago, in 2006, the rate of natural population increase was 0.6 percent, and it has fallen by two-thirds to 0.2 percent in 2025. This drop is largely driven by a concomitant decline in the US birth rate: from 2006 to 2024 the General Fertility Rate in the US fell from 68.6 births per 1,000 women 15-44 to 54.6. Indeed, as this decline in childbearing is expected to continue, it will represent a further drag on US population trends. The Congressional Budget Office forecasts that by 2030, natural population growth in the US will turn negative (that is, deaths will begin to outnumber births).
3. More places across the US are losing population
Finally, the decline in population growth was quite geographically distributed. Five states saw an outright drop in population from 2024 to 2025, compared to two states in the prior year. Again, the geographic spread of population decline is part of a longer-term trend across the United States: researchers have calculated that, from 2010 to 2019 half of US counties lost population. Local population decline presents states and local governments with difficult challenges related to maintaining high-cost services such as education, health care, and transportation infrastructure amid a smaller population from which to raise revenue. As growth in the national population slows, more and more local communities will face the challenges that accompany population decline.
What this means
These estimates from the Census paint a vivid picture of the United States’ growing demographic challenges, should both current immigration and fertility trends persist. Amid declining international immigration and low birth rates, the country is growing less quickly – and will eventually begin to shrink – and the population will grow older. An older and smaller population will present strong headwinds to the country’s economic dynamism and to public finances – particularly the fiscal health of states and communities losing population.