California, New York, and Illinois Experienced Largest Domestic Population Losses 2023 and 2024

In journalism, reporters are taught to never bury the lede – never hide the most important and relevant pieces of a story within other distracting information.

Case in point:

“California nets large population increase in 2024 — nearly returning to pre-pandemic level” is the San Jose Mercury News headline.

According to the Census Bureau, “The growth was primarily driven by rising net international migration.”

This is nothing to brag about. These are not citizens.

But the real lede is:

California, New York and Illinois experienced the largest net domestic migration losses between 2023 and 2024.

California lost domestic population. That is the real headline. This doesn’t fit Gavin Newsom’s agenda that everything is rosy in California. It is not. And legal California citizens are still moving out.

According to the Census Bureau, “the nation’s population surpasses 340 million, this is the fastest annual population growth the nation has seen since 2001 — a notable increase from the record low growth rate of 0.2% in 2021. The growth was primarily driven by rising net international migration.”

“Net international migration, which refers to any change of residence across U.S. borders (the 50 states and the District of Columbia), was the critical demographic component of change driving growth in the resident population. With a net increase of 2.8 million people, it accounted for 84% of the nation’s 3.3 million increase in population between 2023 and 2024. This reflects a continued trend of rising international migration, with a net increase of 1.7 million in 2022 and 2.3 million in 2023.”

This isn’t a reshuffling of the existing states’ populations – this is people moving from other countries – legally and illegally – to the U.S. It is international migration – not people moving in and out of US states.

“Between 2020 and 2022, the so-called California exodus had significant impacts on the state,” the SJMN says. If the California exodus is “so-called,” then why do they admit that it had significant impacts on the state in the same sentence?

“In 2021 the state lost one congressional representative, dipping from 53 to 52 seats in the House of Representatives. Critics of the state’s leadership had cited crime rates, high taxes and high property costs as reasons residents fled to other less regulated states, including Texas and Florida.”

The SJMN noted that California is still far behind the population gains made in Florida and Texas over the past half decade.

“We are still trying to claw back to where we were pre-pandemic,” Jeff Bellisario, executive director of the Bay Area Council Economic Institute said. “It’s going to take us a few more years to get to solid population growth numbers.”

“California had the third most new residents, with the population growing by about 0.59% from July 1, 2023, to Jul 1, 2024. Florida and Texas notched more new residents and top the list of states with the largest increases by raw numbers,” SJMN said.

The Census Bureau also reported:

California (-239,575), New York ( -120,917) and Illinois (-56,235) experienced the largest net domestic migration losses between 2023 and 2024. (emphasis ours)

Texas (85,267), North Carolina (82,288) and South Carolina (68,043) saw the largest gains from domestic migration.

Net international migration was positive for all 50 states and the District of Columbia.

Florida (411,322), California (361,057) and Texas (319,569) saw the largest gains from international migration.

Note: California population is still behind 2020 numbers.

California isn’t even on this list.