U.S. population growth hits record low, slowed by pandemic

The United States’ population grew by just 0.1 percent in the past year, the lowest rate since the nation’s founding, according to estimates released Tuesday by the Census Bureau — a slowdown in which the coronavirus pandemic had a major role.

The country’s population increased by 392,665 in the year ending on July 1, 2021. Some of the reduced rate of growth can be attributed to decreased immigration, reduced fertility and an aging population, trends underway before the pandemic. But the pandemic helped push the rate down to almost flat growth.

“We knew it has had a lot of economic impact, a lot of social impact; this shows it has had a big demographic impact that is going to last us for several years,” said William Frey, a senior demographer at the Brookings Institution.