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Posted on 08/12/2021 6:04:24 PM PDT by lightman
The final release of 2020 Census data came out Thursday, and it’s a mixed bag of results for Pennsylvania.
First off, the Keystone State did see its people numbers crash through the 13 million mark, with a final population count of 13,002,700. That makes Pennsylvania the fifth-largest state in the nation, as we jumped over Illinois in the 2020 count.
On the other hand, population growth here still ranked among the slowest of all the 50 states, and that means that the state will, in a continuation of a long, dispiriting trend, lose a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives and one vote in our Electoral College count for the presidential elections of 2024 and 2028.
Pennsylvania grew by 2.4 percent through the decade, while the nation as a whole added 7.4 percent.
“The story is sort of, yes, Pennsylvania continues to be a slow-growth state. We’re seeing the growth in the same areas that we have in the recent decades, and then, as we would expect, some of our counties to continue to become more racially and ethnically diverse,” said Jennifer Shultz, data services manager for the Pennsylvania State Data Center.
And some analysts are concerned that because of Pennsylvania’s aging population, it will be even harder to maintain that traditionally slow and steady growth in the future as deaths start to outnumber births. That already happened in 2020 according to the state’s preliminary numbers, though the coronavirus pandemic may have played a role in that.
But projections run for the state’s Independent Fiscal Office last year also suggested deaths of residents will start to exceed births in Pennsylvania through the next five years, meaning Pennsylvania would have to finds ways to slow or reverse its annual net loss of residents to other states - pegged at 20,854 in 2020 - or increase the number of international immigrants, a gain of 14,523 in 2020, to stay on the growth track.
Here’s some other takeaways from early review of the data.
A tale of two states.
Pennsylvania’s long-term trends continue.
Nobody’s found the key to bring growth back to the western and northern sections of Pennsylvania. The data shows that population dropped in almost every county north and west of Interstate 81, with the sole exceptions being Butler, Centre (home to Penn State), Allegheny (home to Pittsburgh), Washington and Snyder counties.
Translation?
Whether you put your stock in the shale boom, the Trump tariffs, medical marijuana, or some kind of post-pandemic lift for rural communities, nothing yet has shown itself to be transformative for Pennsylvania’s long-term population trends. The Rust Belt areas that once were driven by steel and coal and related industries have yet to find their magic growth elixir.
Meanwhile, the areas south and east of I-81 and the Pennsylvania Turnpike - here we’re talking mostly about Philadelphia and its suburban collar counties, the adjacent Lehigh Valley, and South Central Pennsylvania - continue to boom.
The secret sauce for those areas seem to be the proximity to Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washington D.C., and in the northeast, to New York City. Lower housing prices have helped Pennsylvania pick up new residents from New York, New Jersey and Maryland, and the region has continued to be buoyed by a diverse economy that includes state government, life sciences, education and warehousing and distribution.
Then too, there’s the synergy that the growth creates, as more people creates new markets and new jobs.
“It does feed upon itself, the multiplier effects,” said Matthew Knittel, executive director of the IFO. “Once it gets started it’s kind of a virtuous cycle.”
On the other side of that I-81 track? Only five counties reported population growth, and only one of them - Butler County - was in the state’s Top Ten for growth.
It was a good decade for Philadelphia.
The City of Brotherly Love, despite the civic disappointment over not being able to land any really big fish like that once-coveted Amazon headquarters, and ongoing concerns - shared with many large American cities - over the gun crimes, managed to add about 77,791 residents over the decade.
That’s the biggest Census-to-Census change for our largest city since the 1940s, when Philadelphia’s population jumped from 1,931,000 to 2,071,000.
At 1.6 million now, Philadelphia remains the sixth-largest city in the nation.
It started the decade in fifth place, but was passed by the sprawling desert metropolis of Phoenix around the middle of the decade. San Antonio will be hot on Philly’s heels in the decade to come.
Cumberland County is on fire - figuratively speaking.
In our own backyard, Cumberland County posted the fastest population growth in the state from 2010 through 2020.
Cumberland, which sits directly across the Susquehanna River and hold the intersection between Interstate 81 and the Pennsylvania Turnpike, saw its population jump by 10.2 percent through the decade, to a new total of 259,469. It was the only county to exceed 10 percent growth.
The other counties that topped 5 percent growth over the last 10 years were: Lebanon, 7.3 percent; Lehigh, 7.2 percent; Chester and Montgomery, both 7.1 percent; Dauphin, 6.8 percent; Lancaster, 6.5 percent; Butler, 5.4 percent; Northampton, 5.1 percent; and Philadelphia, 5.1 percent.
The sharpest drops came in Susquehanna and Cameron counties, which saw their population drop 11.4 and 10.6 percent, respectively. Overall, 44 of Pennsylvania’s 67 counties lost population.
Diversity.
Pennsylvania is still whiter than the nation as a whole, but the Keystone State did become somewhat more diverse in the last decade.
“The white-alone population has declined slightly, and the Hispanic and multi-racial categories have increased. But if you listened to the Census’s press conference today, that’s a nationwide trend,” Shultz said, in part because of new methods of tracking race employed by the Census Bureau.
The 2020 racial and ethnic breakdown for the state is: white alone: 73.5 percent; Black or African-American: 10.5 percent; and Hispanic or Latino: 8.1 percent. Another 7.9 percent of the state’s residents identified in one of several other categories.
By comparison, the national count showed the white alone population at 57.8 percent; Hispanic / Latino at 18.7 percent. and Black / African-American at 12.1 percent. Across America, 11.4 percent of the population fell outside of those top categories.
The whitest state in the union right now is Maine, at 90.1 percent. On the other hand, Hispanics make up the largest slice of the diversity pie in California (39.4 percent) and New Mexico (47.7 percent), as do African-Americans in Washington D.C. (40.9 percent), and Asian-Americans (36.5 percent) in Hawaii.
Pennsylvania Ping!
Please ping me with articles of interest.
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“deaths of residents will start to exceed births in Pennsylvania through the next five year”
Blue States are literally dying.
Our growth here in PA to the extent we have it is about New York, New Jersey and Maryland-Washington DC.
The people from there move our way for cheaper housing, lower taxes and retirement.
Biden didn't come close to "winning" PA if the cesspool vote machine of Philthy is excluded. I give zero fvks about differing opinion. Demographics is destiny and our destiny is clear.
Maine is looking better and better to this soon-to-be-ex-Kalifornian.
That map is pretty good for the GOP, a majority of the 7 seats are shifting to red states. Alas OR and CO will likely be gerrymandered to favor the rats.
Here’s hoping the one seat lost is a Democrat seat. Tim Ryan, you’re fired!
(Really concerned about the “nonpartisan” redistricting. )
First of all.
Pennsylvania is not a state.
It’s a Commonwealth.
No bias there....
“shared with many large American cities - over the gun crimes, managed to add about 77,791 residents over the decade.”
I would like to see a meteor come down and destroy Philadelphia along with the Penn Live website. Good riddance. /spit.
Pennsylvania is not a state.
It’s a Commonwealth.
Nor is West Virginia. It is a condition!
Mass. too.
Also Virginia and Kentucky.
What is the difference?
“or increase the number of international immigrants” - Why doesn’t my State (PA) consider Americans from other States? Silly to just consider foreigners who tend to be a drain.
The fact CA is losing a seat is amazing. Lousy Democrat leadership.
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