Joseph Spector
New York’s population continued to decline more than any state in the nation, new figures released Tuesday by the U.S. Census Bureau show.
The Empire State’s population fell by 126,355 people between July 2019 and July 2020, to 19.3 million, a drop of 0.65%, according to the preliminary figures. That’s the most of any state by total and by percentage.
Population decline continues to be a problem for New York, and it could play out in 2022 during federal reapportionment. At this rate, New York could lose as many as two U.S. House seats; it will certainly lose one, dropping it from 27 to 26 seats and impacting its clout in Washington.
New York could also be on the way to its first population decline in any decade since the 1970s, according to the Empire Center, a fiscally conservative think tank in Albany.
New York’s population has been boosted by immigrants and new births, but even that has tailed off in recent years, E.J. McMahon, the group’s founder, wrote.
“The 2020 estimated New York population represented a net decline of 41,326, or 0.21%, from the official decennial census count in 2010 — largely because foreign immigration into the state has fallen off sharply since 2017, in line with a national trend,” he wrote.
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Florida surpassed New York in 2014 as the third largest state in the nation, and the gap has widened since then.
Florida gained 241,256 people since July 2019, bringing its population to 21.7 million. Only Texas, the second most populous state behind California, gained more people over the past year, the census data showed.
New York has had an exodus over the past decade of about 1.4 million people, and about 21% of them went to Florida, by far the most of any other state, data last year showed.
The latest drop in New York was part of an overall decline of 153,065 people in the Northeast between July 2019 and July 2020, the most of any region in the nation.
New Jersey, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont and Connecticut all had modest population declines over the past year.
Nationally, only Illinois neared New York in percent of population decline, down 79,487 people, or 0.63%, since last year.
Overall, the nation has gained nearly 21 million people since 2010, the Empire Center said, up 6.7%
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Gov. Andrew Cuomo has downplayed the population drop as the state faces criticism for high taxes driving people to less expensive states.
In 2018, Cuomo was knocked for saying upstate’s winter weather was a significant factor in people moving elsewhere, particularly the South.
“More people are leaving upstate net? Yes. People will make demographic choices about where they want to live,” Cuomo said two years ago.
“Some of them are climate-based. Some of them are based for personal reasons. So the diminishing population in upstate is not new. People were leaving upstate New York because they had to in the past.”
Cuomo has pointed to lower income taxes installed by his administration and a property-tax cap that has limited the growth since 2011 as ways the state has sought to lower the cost of living.—AFP
