Nearly 75% of U.S. counties lost population last year as deaths outnumbered births, data shows

‘That’s unheard of in American history,’ said demographer Kenneth M. Johnson of the Census Bureau findings

Almost three-quarters of all U.S. counties reported more deaths than births last year, a development largely caused by the pandemic, which contributed to a dramatic slowing in the nation’s overall population growth, according to data released Thursday by the Census Bureau.

Low fertility rates, which have persisted since the end of the Great Recession, and the nation’s continuing demographic shift toward an older population also combined to create the smallest population increase in 100 years, said Kenneth M. Johnson, a sociology professor and demographer at the University of New Hampshire. He said he expected the data to show a natural decrease but was surprised at its scale. Natural decrease occurs when a population records more deaths than births.

“I think one of the most important findings is the fact that almost 2,300 counties had more deaths than births in them. That’s unheard of in American history,” Johnson said.

He said the coronavirus’s impact, along with longer-term trends that limited population growth, had created “a perfect storm,” and that one would have to go back at least to the 1918 flu pandemic to find anything like it.

The data also offered statistical backing to widespread anecdotal evidence suggesting that millions of Americans moved out of the nation’s largest cities, including the District, during the pandemic. Whether for safety from infectious disease or convenience during shutdowns, millions traded cities for suburbs or larger suburbs for smaller ones. Many migrated farther into rural counties or resettled to second homes in vacation areas, such as the Catskill Mountains or the Delmarva Peninsula.

Two of the nation’s largest cities, Los Angeles and New York City, suffered the sharpest losses as a result of internal migration. Los Angeles County lost 179,757 people in net domestic migration, while New York County lost 113,642.

California, Oregon and Mississippi had the most counties negatively affected by international migration losses, while Alaska, Louisiana and Illinois had the most counties affected by losses caused by domestic migration within the United States.

Of course, the outflows from some states meant gains in others. Arizona’s Maricopa County, which includes Phoenix, received the most people (46,866) from other areas of the United States.

“I’m very surprised by this because I didn’t think it was going to be as dramatic, the domestic migration piece of it,” said William H. Frey, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, who analyzed the data and its impact on the Washington region. “It may be a blip, and I think it is, but it’s certainly noteworthy. I think that’s the bigger demographic pattern here.”

Frey said that although outward domestic migration from these and other major cities had been underway for many years, its effect had been masked by increases in foreign immigrants, but those numbers also slowed during the pandemic.

The data released Thursday covered 3,143 counties, along with 384 metropolitan statistical areas and 543 smaller locales known as micropolitan statistical areas. The period covered by the data — July 2020 to July 2021 — also coincided with some of the peak rates of the coronavirus′s spread, as reflected in reported cases.

In that time, more than 73 percent of all U.S. counties experienced a natural population decrease, compared with 55 percent of all counties in 2020 and 45 percent in 2019, the Census Bureau found. In four states — Delaware, Maine, New Hampshire and Rhode Island — the natural population decrease occurred in every county.

The nation’s capital recorded a loss of 20,043 people, driven mostly by domestic migration, while its metropolitan area lost more than 29,000 people, Frey said. Montgomery County experienced a loss of 6,416 people, Prince George’s County reported a decline of 10,295, and Fairfax County’s population declined by 8,752. Prince William County added 1,734 people, Frey found.

He also noted the huge turnaround in immigration, tracing a peak influx of more than 47,000 reported in July 2015 to only 12,600 last year.

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