COVID-19 Pandemic Impacts California’s Population Growth

Sacramento, CA — State officials say California’s population growth has slowed to the lowest rate on record, and the COVID-19 pandemic attributed to the loss.

This growth record covers the change from July 1, 2019, to July 1st of this year, adding just 21,200 people, according to the California Department of Finance report released today. The latest population estimated figures showed that for the second straight year, more people left California than moved to the state, resulting in a net migration loss of 135,600 people.

The number of people that left the state was similar to last year. Different this year was the low number of people that moved to California, especially from April to June, when the state was under a stay-at-home order because of the virus. Also, considered an impact of the pandemic is the state’s increased death rate, surmise state officials.

This year, the state’s deaths grew by 12,800 to a total of 280,100. California reported a total of 6,163 coronavirus deaths on July 1, since then that number has grown to 21,481 as of Tuesday. Even with that hike, when subtracting deaths from births, the state added 156,600 people to its population naturally, a 0.05% growth, down from 0.23% the prior year. Currently, the total population stands at 39.78 million people.