Remarks
America’s Population Growth Looks to Be the Slowest Since 1918
A drop in immigration and the Covid-19 pandemic are a double whammy.
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Since the Declaration of Independence in 1776, the population of the U.S. has dropped only once, in 1918, when more people died from the Spanish flu than from war wounds on the battlefields of Europe. The second-lowest year for population growth? Probably this year, 2021.
An April 7 research briefing from Oxford Economics estimates that the U.S. population will grow just 0.2% this year, after growth of just 0.4% last year. Those are the lowest numbers in U.S. history, with the exception of the population shrinkage of about 0.1% in the pandemic year of 1918.