New data from the Census Bureau indicates that U.S. population growth has stagnated in the last years of the decade, as declining immigration rates and an aging population are sinking. full in the coronavirus pandemic that slowed migration to the United States.
The consequence is likely to be a tough battle for the reallocation process that will follow the publication of the Office’s official population figures early next year.
Estimates suggest that two states, in particular Alabama and New York, will spend the next few weeks in needles, waiting to see which state wins the 435th seat in the House of Representatives.
If the reassignment was made on the basis of the new estimates, the Texas delegation to the House of Representatives would increase by three seats, Florida by two and Arizona, Colorado, Montana, North Carolina and Oregon would add an additional seat.
In the losing end, there is New York, which will be reduced by two seats in its delegation to Congress. California, Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and West Virginia would lose a seat. In the case of California, it would mark the first time since the state lost a seat in a round of distribution.
The latest figures are a gift from the Alabama holiday season. For most of the decade, population estimates have suggested that New York would only lose one seat and that Alabama would also lose one seat.
“For the most part, Alabama has lost the biggest demographic changes to the southern states. The new reports provide a small glimmer of hope that Alabama can begin to take advantage of some of that growth, ”said Robert Blanton, chair of the Department of Political Science at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.
But both New York and Alabama have to wait for the final figures from the Census Bureau, not July 1 estimates, but the April 1 formal decennial count. And the margins are so close that neither can plan estimates: Alabama appears to have retained a seventh seat with a margin of just 6,210 residents, and estimates show that New York lost its 26th seat by just 24,430 people.
As things get more complicated, various legal challenges to census counts could throw all estimates into chaos. The Supreme Court said last week that it was premature to rule on whether the Trump administration could exclude undocumented immigrants from the distribution data that will grant seats in the House to states.
“All of this shows the degree of proximity of these population estimates and how in fact there could be changes in distribution, depending not only on what the Supreme Court does, but clearly on the straight population itself,” Kimball Brace said. , a demographer who runs the non-partisan firm Election Data Services.
Figures released Tuesday are estimates of annual population changes that ended July 1, 2020, according to official 2010 census counts. According to those estimates, the United States added just over 1.1 million residents. over the past year, an annual rate of 0.35 per cent: the lowest annual growth rate of any year since the Office began making annual estimates in 1900.
Sixteen states have experienced a net loss of population over the past year, according to figures, and six states (Connecticut, Illinois, Mississippi, New York, Vermont and West Virginia) have fewer people today than when they left. conduct the last census in 2010..
Some experts raised questions about the quality of this year’s census, hampered by both the challenges of counting people in the midst of a pandemic and the Trump administration’s efforts to speed up the count and reduce follow-up procedures. Accelerated counting, a concern for some cities and states, may overlook their hard-to-count populations, made up disproportionately of minorities, rural and undocumented residents.
“All these are population estimates. They are not the final census count. The real problem is that we don’t know to what extent the census was actually done this year, “Brace said.” It is possible that the problems with this year’s census will actually appear next month when the distribution figures come out. “.
The latest figures show that the population continues to move away from the northeastern states and the rust belt to the southern, western and western mountain regions.
Since the early 20th century, the nine states that make up New England and the Mid-Atlantic, from Maine to the Mason-Dixon Line on the southern border of Pennsylvania, have seen their representation in Congress fall from 109 seats to 74 seats, if current projections are maintained.
Seven states in what the Census Bureau calls the Northwest Central region, from the Canadian borders of North Dakota and Minnesota in the south to Kansas and Missouri, have seen their delegations shrink from 54 to 28 seats, according to estimates.
Delegations from the five Pacific Coast states, including Alaska and Hawaii, which joined the Union in 1959, will have gone from 13 seats to 71 seats. Eight Mountain West states will see their combined delegations go from 13 seats at the turn of the last century, before Arizona and New Mexico joined the Union, to 34 seats today. These eight states have won ten seats in the last three decades.
Both the South Atlantic region, from Maryland to Florida, and the West South Central, which includes Texas and its three neighbors to the north and east, have been the beneficiaries of the northern population drain in the century. past. Only Texas has doubled its delegation since the reassignment process that took place after the 1910 census, while the Florida delegation has multiplied by seven, from four seats to 29 at the same time, assuming current estimates. .
“The relative change in population and seats in the northeast, midwest, and, for the first time, California and south and southwest is not a new trend, but it reflects the change of decades that has had political consequences. and economic, at least for the balance of power between states and regions of the House, ”said Charles Frankling, director of the Marquette Law School survey, who analyzed the new population data.
“This process will continue.”