State’s Population Inches Upward, but Lags Behind Nation; Births Outnumber Deaths, but Wage-Earners Leaving State

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. – Alabama’s population has increased since the year 2000, but the good news ends there.

The state’s rate of growth was below the national average, according to estimates released recently by the U.S. Census Bureau. From July 2000 to July 2001 the nation, as a whole, increased by nearly 1 percentage point. Alabama’s increase was 0.3 percent. Alabama’s growth rate also lags behind its contiguous states and the South as a whole.

And the population growth was because there were more births than deaths, enough to offset the number of people who left the state.

“There are only four ways a state’s population can change,” said Annette Watters, manager of the Alabama State Data Center and assistant director, Center for Business and Economic Research at The University of Alabama. “People move in and out, and people are born and die.

“Between 2000 and 2001, Alabama lost more movers than we gained from other states or from other countries. More than 3,000 people from other countries moved into Alabama in that year’s time, but nearly 8,000 more people moved out of Alabama than the number who moved here from other states. The reason Alabama’s population increased is because there were more births than deaths in the state, and there were enough births to overcome the losses from out-migrants.”

Watters said the reasons Alabama is losing adult citizens and families to other states are not clear, but she said it is a disturbing pattern. “Gaining population from births is a hard way for the economy to flourish,” she said. “Those newborns will not be workers for about two decades, whereas some of the people who moved away last year left to contribute their time, talents, and dollars to the economies of different states.”

The slow rate of growth holds enormous economic implications for the state, Watters said.

“The Census Bureau’s estimates are used in federal funding allocations, as denominators for vital rates and per capita time series, as survey controls, and in monitoring recent demographic changes. Population estimates are for the past; projections look at population for future dates.”

The 2001 estimates reveal that the South and the West were the parts of the country that grew the most. While the South had the largest increase in people since Census 2000 (1.6 million), the rate of growth in the West remained the highest: 2.0 percent.

Watters said Alabama increased an estimated 12,800 people in the 12 months between July 2000 and July 2001, the most recent time period for which estimates are available. By comparison, Tennessee added almost 38,000 people; Mississippi added nearly 9,000; Georgia added 154,000; and Florida added 342,000.

Mississippi also lost population to other states. Tennessee, however, netted 8,600 new residents from other states. Georgia and Florida were also big gainers in attracting new citizens to relocate into their states. “Of course, people also moved out of Georgia and Florida, but from mid-2000 to mid-2001, Georgia had a net gain of 59,200 and Florida a net increase of 205,300 people who had previously lived elsewhere in the United States,” according to Watters.

She said the trend for Alabama to grow more slowly than the national average is typical of the pattern established in the last decade. During the decade of the 1990s, the nation increased its population 13.2 percent. Alabama increased by 10.1 percent.

Information about any county in Alabama can be obtained at http://cber.cba.ua.edu.

The University of Alabama’s Culverhouse College of Commerce and Business Administration, founded in 1919, first began offering graduate education in 1923. Its Center for Business and Economic Research was created in 1930, and since that time has engaged in research programs to promote economic development in the state while continuously expanding and refining its base of socioeconomic information.