All U.S. population growth in 2022-2023 happened because of immigration, not births — the first time that’s occurred since 1850, a migration think tank reported Wednesday.
That immigration growth has happened as U.S. birth rates have fallen, the Migration Policy Institute reported as part of its latest edition of “Frequently Requested Statistics on Immigrants and Immigration in the United States.”
The immigrant population grew by 1.6 million people between 2022 and 2023, reaching a record high of 47.8 million in 2023, according to the analysis. That’s about a 3.6% population increase, the largest annual growth since 2010, the institute stated in its report.
However, the foreign-born percentage of the U.S. population is 14.3%. That puts it slightly below the 14.8% registered in 1890, MPI said.
Nearly three-quarters (73%) of immigrants in the U.S. are legally present and almost half are naturalized citizens, according to MPI.
In addition to naturalized citizenship, those with legal status include green-card holders (legal permanent residents), refugees, those who have been granted asylum, had long-term visas as students, temporary workers or other categories.
U.S. birth rates reached a historic low in 2023, falling 2% from the previous year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The fertility rate fell to 54.5 birth per 1,000 females of ages 15-44 in 2023, down from 56 in 2022.
The Census Bureau began collecting nativity data in 1850, when 2.2 million immigrants made up 10% of the U.S. population.
The U.S. is in the midst of a major immigration policy shake-up, with the Trump administration making a number of moves to curtail it. Many of its efforts are focused on illegal immigration, but some legal immigration and naturalization programs and pathways are also being affected.
At the same time, you’re hearing about countries like South Korea and Japan, and a handful of others, actually offering money for people to immigrate to their country. I suspect that, like in United States, some other countries are just so depressing, that no one wants to have a family there, while, as you mentioned, others are leaving.
Although, I’ve never thought of South Korea nor Japan as somewhere I wouldn’t want to live. Then again, I’m not interested in raising the family here, either.
It’s not just sk and Japan, China is now incentivizing women and families with improved social programs and economics, along with propaganda because they have the same problem the rest of the industrialized world does–no one can afford to have kids and many are miserable in capitalist or dictatorial hellholes. Southern Europe, has some of the lowest birthrates in the world, Italy, Spain but they have had some immigration (which largely also has been accompanied by racism and move to the right).
The US is seriously throwing away its incredible competitive advantage in that people were still moving here. When that stops, our actual population will go into decline which will destroy our economy(or what’s left of it) and everything will be a firestorm faster–and instead of the 🥕 approach of course the facts will take the stick and tell Americans to work until they die and kill social security.