California’s population declines for the first time
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — California’s population fell by more than 182,000 last year, the first yearly loss ever recorded for the nation’s most populous state, a growth streak that dated to its founding in 1850 on the heels of a gold rush that prompted a flood of people to seek their fortune in the West.
The figures released Friday followed last week’s announcement from the U.S. Census Bureau that California would lose a congressional seat for the first time because it grew more slowly than other states over the past decade. Still, California’s population of just under 39.5 million and soonto-be 52-member congressional delegation remain the largest.
California’s population has surged and slowed in the decades since its founding, with notable increases following World War II and the tech boom of the 1980s and ’90s that put Silicon Valley on the map.
In recent years, more people have left California for other states than have moved there, a trend Republicans say is a result of the state’s high taxes and progressive politics. The average sale price of a single-family home in California hit a record $758,990 in March, a 23.9 percent increase from a year ago.
“The numbers don’t lie. People are leaving our state because it’s not affordable to live here,” tweeted Kevin Faulconer, the former mayor of San Diego and one of the Republican candidates hoping to unseat Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom in this year’s expected recall election.
But the Newsom administration says California’s population decline is an outlier, blaming it on the coronavirus pandemic that turned everything upside down in 2020.
California has been steadily losing people to other states for years. From 2010 to 2020, about 6.1 million people left for other states and only 4.9 million arrived from other parts of the country, according to an analysis of census data by the Public Policy Institute of California.
But the influx of international immigrants and births outpacing deaths have always been enough to overcome that loss. That changed in 2020.
In a normal year, California might have between 140,000 and 150,000 people move in from other countries. In 2020, it was just 29,000 people — a direct impact, state officials say, of the Trump administration halting new visas for much of the year.
Global lockdowns because of the coronavirus prompted a 29 percent decline in international students coming to California, or about 53,000 people.
Births continued their steady decline, mirroring a national trend. But deaths soared as the coronavirus killed 51,000 people in California last year, accounting for a 19 percent increase of the state’s death rate compared to the previous three-year average.
“If it were not for the pandemic last year, we might be having a very different conversation today,” said Walter Schwarm, California’s chief demographer.
Population estimates released last week by the U.S. Census Bureau showed paltry growth in California. But those numbers showed California’s population as of April 2020. The numbers the state released Friday reflect California’s population as of January 2021.