Population falls for second year in a row

The Big Apple isn’t as big as it used to be.

New York City is hemorrhaging residents, losing about 40,000 people last year, according to an annual Census Bureau report released Thursday.

The exodus brought the population of the five boroughs to 8.4 million, according to federal estimates.

The 0.47% drop from a year earlier comes as the feds adjusted their previous numbers from 2017; officials previously estimated the city’s population grew 7,000. Revised those figures show the city lost 38,000, a 0.45% drop.

The adjustment is mostly due to the feds changing they way they analyze international migration. Census officials previously estimated that about 78,000 residents migrated to the city from abroad from 2010 to 2017. They now say that the number was likely closer to 54,000 annually.

City officials admitted that growth has waned in recent years following an influx of new residents around the 2010 census, but noted that numbers are still up since the last official Census count nearly a decade ago.

Overall, the city has population has increased by 224,000, or 2.7% since the 2010 Census, even taking the methodology into account.

“New York City’s population growth as of July 2018 has already exceeded that of the entire last decade,” Department of City Planning spokeswoman Melissa Grace said. “The Census Bureau’s annual estimates show yearto-year fluctuations — and that underscores how critical it is to get a full and accurate 2020 Census count. The once-a-decade Census offers a direct count, rather than estimations of population.”

The Census estimate also showed that residents continue to flee areas of the state outside the city. The Empire State’s population dropped by 48,500, a 0.25% decline, to 19.5 million, from 2017 to 2018. Overall, the U.S. saw a 0.6% population growth during the same period.