WASHINGTON (TNND) — There has been an alarming shift in how many people are living in the United States. A new report from the U.S. Census Bureau shows the most recent numbers reflect the slowest growth rate ever in this country, aside from in 2021, when Covid-19 caused deaths to rise rapidly.
While births and deaths have remained steady, the changes are widespread. (TNND)
“The slowdown in U.S. population growth is largely due to a historic decline in net international migration, which dropped from 2.7 million to 1.3 million in the period from July 2024 through June 2025,” said Christine Hartley, assistant division chief for Estimates and Projections at the Census Bureau.
While births and deaths have remained steady, the changes are widespread.
“Now that the population is older and fertility rates have gone down, most of the growth of the U.S. population comes from immigration, so if immigration slows down, the population is not growing as fast,” said Jed Kolko, a Senior Fellow with the Peterson Institute for International Economics.
Kolko previously served as the Undersecretary for Economic Affairs at the Department of Commerce, where part of his role was overseeing the Census Bureau and Bureau of Economic Analysis.
“These are the numbers that drive decisions,” Kolko said. “They help plan how much housing is needed, how much infrastructure is needed, so these are numbers that are really used for policymakers. They’re also used by businesses as they try to decide where to make investments and what places to grow in .”
The data was collected between June 2024 to June 2025, a time period marked by more restrictive immigration policies by President Joe Biden during his final months in office, and President Donald Trump, who in many ways shut down the border upon returning to office.
The way the Census counts the population has been a major target for President Trump since his first term, when he signed an Executive Order to make it easier to determine how many of those counted in the census were not U.S. citizens.
During a July 2019 announcement, Trump spoke about what it would include.
“As a result of today’s Executive Order, we will be able to ensure the 2020 census generates an accurate count of how many citizens, non-citizens, and illegal aliens are in the United States of America.”
More recently, in August of this year, Trump posted on Truth Social and he had instructed the Department of Commerce “to begin work on a new and highly accurate census,” adding, “People who are in our country illegally will not be counted in the census.”
Still, most experts and the courts have often ruled that it would violate the Constitution.
“The Constitution is very clear on this, that you count all people, not just all citizens, said Casey Burgat, Associate Professor and Director, Legislative Affairs at George Washington University’s Graduate School of Political Management.
The Census not only determines how much funding each state gets from the federal government, but also political apportionment, or how many elected lawmakers in the House of Representatives each state gets.
New estimates from The American Redistricting Project show California could lose the most, four seats.
Texas is expected to gain four and Florida could gain two additional seats.
The Congressional map could be considerably altered if the trend continues.
“When we get to Congress, we have historically had small, razor-thin majorities there. Where 2,3,4,5 seats are enough to change which party is in power,” Burgat said.
That power flows directly from the people, not just how many there are, but where they decide to live.
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