Census Cut Population By 570,000 People in 2017

And Other Interesting Stories From the New Population Estimates

The Census Bureau just released its new population estimates. They’ll be in the news. You’ll hear about the fastest and slowest growing places. That’s cool beans.

Let’s talk nerd. What revisions did Census make? Let’s start nationally.

Here’s Census’ revisions to national population each year versus the previous year, expressed as a percent of the previous vintage’s estimate.

As you can see, Census’ revisions this censal period are of a similar magnitude as the last one. And in 2018, they mad some pretty big cuts! They reduced estimated 2017 population by 0.18%! That’s 570,000 people they just poof’d out of existence! All told, Census lowered person-years between 2010 and 2017 by about 1.8 million. That’s significant!

Let’s look at some example states, shall we? Let’s look at Hawaii, which I’ve talked a lot about in the past.

Hawaii got slashed again! No good. Net migration in 16–17 came to about -9,400 and in 17–18 it was about -8,400. For the record, that’s about what I projected in my base specification for Hawaii in the articles I link to above.

What about another hot-topic place? Let’s look at Illinois!

In 2017, Illinois got a very positive, favorable revision. But this year for 2018, Illinois got whacked. Ouchy.

But you know who REALLY got slammed? New York! I’m not gonna show you the rate change for this one; I’m gonna show raw population estimates.

That’s a downward revision of 250,000 people, and it’s saying that New York population has been declining for ***3 years***. We’ll get to component level stuff below, but folks, that’s no joke. If you’re in New York right now reading this, you should be concerned. Yes, in the 2000s, you had a decline like this as well, and recovered. But recovery is not inevitable. Ask West Virginia.

Here’s the map of revisions for 2017 overall:

As you can see, the heaviest revision losses are in New York and New Jersey. Nevada also has losses. There are some gains in Arizona, New Hampshire, South Dakota, Montana, Washington… but not enough to offset losses. As I said, losses come to -570,000.

So that’s totals. What happened to component level changes?

Nationally, there is indeed a big cut to international migration, especially in 2017. Births are also down, while deaths are up. Notably, however, the cut to international migration goes all the way back to 2011!

And what does it look like if we zoom in on New York?

Large, accelerating downward revisions in international migration. Whoopsie.

That’s an extremely brief look at revisions. I may write more later. But I’ll note that you can also pay me to do a closer look at places that interest you! Email or contact me on Twitter and we can set something up.

-Lyman