California is growing again: Golden State’s population rebounds to near pre-pandemic level

After several years of decline, California’s population grew by almost a quarter of a million residents in 2024, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, a rebound that brings the Golden State almost back to its pre-pandemic numbers.

The numbers are not all rosy. California experienced a slower growth rate than the country as a whole, particularly large states in the fast-growing South. It also experienced the nation’s largest domestic migration loss.

But experts say California’s new population figures represent an important turnaround.

“The big picture is California is growing again,” said Hans Johnson, a senior fellow at the Public Policy Institute of California. “It shows California has a pretty healthy growth rate… The number of people who are coming into the state from abroad has increased, the number of people leaving for other states has decreased. There are still substantial flows to other states, but that’s not as large as it was.”

While California’s population gain of 232,570 people from July 1, 2023, to July 1, 2024, represents the largest numeric population increase in the nation’s West, it lagged behind Texas, which expanded its population by 562,941, and Florida, which grew by 467,347 people.

California’s 0.6% population increase also fell short of the national average (0.9%) and was significantly outpaced by the District of Columbia (2.2%), Florida (2%) and Texas (1.8%).

During the COVID-19 pandemic, California’s population dropped after a decade of steady growth. Upon reaching its highest-ever population level in 2020 with more than 39.5 million people, the state lost nearly 1% of its population by July 1, 2021, as it introduced a rash of restrictions, including the closures of offices, retail stores, restaurants and schools.

California is still the nation’s most populous state with 39,431,263 residents, significantly more than Texas’ 31 million and Florida’s 23 million. But its overall population remained 124,000 short of its 2020 peak.

California’s population decline has been seized on by the right as a sign of the failure of its liberal progressivism. GOP critics, such as Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, have presented California as a state in decline, arguing that in recent years its residents were fleeing to red states because California had become a bastion of high crime, unaffordable housing, excessive regulation and wacky leftist ideology.

Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office celebrated the Census Bureau estimate, released the same week that the California Department of Finance released data that also showed state population growth.

“People from across the nation and the globe are coming to the Golden State to pursue the California Dream and experience the success of the world’s fifth largest economy — strengthening local communities, regional economies and our state’s future,” said Brendan Richards, a spokesman for Newsom.

California’s population growth stems largely from international migration and natural population increases (the net result of births minus deaths) — not domestic migration.

Census Bureau estimates showed California experienced the nation’s largest domestic migration loss — minus 239,575 people — while Texas added 85,267.

The main driver of California’s population growth is people from outside the U.S.: the state experienced the nation’s second largest net gain in international migration, attracting 361,057 people from other countries, short of Florida’s 411,322, but ahead of Texas’ 319,569.

California also experienced the nation’s second highest natural increases — births outnumbering deaths — with a net gain of 110,466 people, just short of Texas’ 158,753.

Beyond the cultural wars’ rhetoric between red and blue states, population shifts have the potential to reshape the national potential landscape.

In 2021, new census data resulted in the state losing a congressional representative for the first time in its history, falling from 53 to 52 seats in the House of Representatives. Last year, the Brennan Center for Justice predicted that the state was on track to lose four more congressional districts in reapportionment in 2030, leaving California with just 48 House seats.

Michael Li, senior counsel in the Brennan Center’s Democracy Program, said Friday the Census Bureau’s new estimates indicated there might be a slightly less dramatic 2030 reapportionment across the nation. But assuming the population trend of the last two years carried out for the rest of the decade, he said, California was still on track to lose three or four seats — and possibly more, depending on how harshly President Trump’s administration clamped down on immigration.

“California’s population is sustained mostly by immigration,” Li said. “It has around 360,000 people coming in from outside the United States… With a new administration coming in, talking about deporting millions of people and maybe cutting off pathways of legal immigration into the country, there’s a lot that could change.”

The Trump administration, Li said, could also fiddle with the census. For example, adding a citizenship question could depress turnout and participation.

The Census Bureau estimates were released a day before the California Department of Finance released data Friday showing the state’s population grew by about 49,000 in the fiscal year ending July 1 to 39,172,742. The department’s estimate is substantially lower than the Census Bureau’s estimate of 232,570, largely because the bureau attributes a much higher level of international migration to California.

As a demographer who has looked at population data for decades, Johnson said this year’s difference between the Census Bureau and California Department of Finance estimates was remarkable.

“The big difference is migration, and migration is hard to measure,” Johnson said. “We have legal flows and administrative records, but people sometimes will be, for example, adjusting their status from some sort of temporary status to a permanent status. Technically, that could be considered immigration, but it’s not a new resident. And then, of course, unauthorized or undocumented immigration is difficult to measure as well.”

The California Department of Finance attributed the state’s growth to a combination of factors: legal immigration continuing to rebound after the pandemic; greater domestic migration in and slowed domestic out-migration; natural increase as the number of deaths lowers from its pandemic peak.

Johnson said he didn’t expect conservatives to stop holding up California as a symbol of national decline.

“There’s still a lot of people leaving California to move to other states — no doubt about it — so there’s probably some political hay to be made there,” Johnson said. “The reason for that is because the cost of living and housing prices are so high in California, which means people want to live here, because that’s a demand and supply consideration.”

During California’s heyday of rapid population growth, Johnson said, the state used to gain people from the rest of the country, as well as from abroad. But that hasn’t been the case for a couple of decades.

Still, Johnson said, liberals could push against simplistic conservative narratives and offer a reality check.

“Why is California so expensive?” he said. “Part of it is probably that it’s more difficult to build housing here. But one reason it’s more difficult to build housing here is because land is expensive, and land is expensive because a lot of people want to own land or own houses in California.”