“Recent census data shows that America's population is growing, and New York was the state with the largest numeric gains from 2023 to 2024 after a long-standing trend of residents leaving the Empire State.
After America's population experienced "historically low growth during the COVID-19 pandemic," the number of people in the U.S. "grew substantially," by nearly 1 percent, since 2023, a report from the U.S. Census found.
New York City Mayor Eric Adams recently announced that the city's population numbers have also been on the rise.
Census data from December 2024 shows that births outnumbered deaths in New York for 2024. But it remains among the three states that experienced the highest loss in population due to migration, joining California and Illinois…
The U.S. census data shared in December found that from 2023 to 2024, New York lost 120,917 residents to migration, but the state's population increased by 129,881.
Benjamin Cornwell, professor of sociology at Cornell University, told Newsweek that New York has been experiencing a population decline for the past decade:
‘The most frequent destination for out-movers from the state is Florida, followed by New Jersey and Connecticut,’ Cornwell said. ‘You'd think that this has to do with the popular stereotype of older folks wanting to move to places like Florida. But this is actually largely driven by younger, college-age adults.’
The reason college-age adults are moving out of New York could be because of housing-related concerns, Cornwell said, or because they got a new job in another state.
According to Cornwell ‘state out-migration in general is driven a lot by new jobs or job transfers, so it is natural that people who are more mobile, in the sense that they are less likely to have their own families, for example, would drive this trend. Housing concerns also play a large role, with people who lived in group quarters in the state more likely to contribute to this trend. So, we have people getting new jobs, and often who want their own home.’"
