Pennsylvania population growth remains slow, steady
Youngsters run up the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art during an unseasonably warm December afternoon in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)
Pennsylvania has gained about 100,000 new residents in the past five years.
New population estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau show Pennsylvania has gained 99,616 residents since 2010.
The commonwealth’s growth rate of 0.8 percent is well below the nation’s growth rate of 4.1 percent and about half of the Northeast region’s 1.7 percent rate.
John Maurer, an analyst with the Pennsylvania State Data Center, says sluggish growth is par for the course in the Keystone State. “Here in Pennsylvania the big takeaway is that our longstanding trend of slow and consistent population growth continues,” Maurer said. “It’s really a population trend that’s been going on for decades. You can go all the way back to the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s.”
Three-fourths of the population increase over the last five years can be attributed to births. The rest came primarily from international migration. In domestic migration, Pennsylvania lost 132,073 people; more people have left Pennsylvania for other states, than migrated into Pennsylvania from other U.S. states.
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