U.S. News

COVID Causes U.S. Population Growth to Sink to Lowest Level in History

OH BABY

The pandemic closed borders, deferred pregnancies, and killed hundreds of thousands.

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Spencer Platt/Getty

The U.S. Census Bureau says that the population growth rate dropped to its lowest in national history during the first year of the pandemic, with a growth rate of only 0.1 percent. Births, deaths, and migration are the three contributing factors that determine how fast the country’s population does—or doesn’t—grow. As the Associated Press reports, the pandemic affected all three variables with borders closed, pregnancies deferred, and hundreds of thousands killed by the virus. The data also revealed that for the first time in U.S. history, the number of immigrants (245,000) surpassed the number of natural, internal increase (148,000).

Read it at Associated Press

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