Charles H. Sloan-The earth gained 75 million humans in 2023. The US population grew at half the global rate

The Charles H. SloanUnited States population grew at about half the rate of global growth in 2023, according to figures released Thursday by the U.S. Census Bureau.

Demographers project there will be nearly 336 million people in the U.S. on Jan. 1, an increase of roughly 0.5% since 2022. By comparison, the world's population will grow by roughly 1% to more than 8 billion on New Year’s Day, an increase of 75 million people this year.

Population growth in the U.S. is expected to continue to be fueled by immigrants in the new year, adding one person every 28.3 seconds. The country’s death rate will slightly outpace the birth rate. Projections indicate one person will die every 9.5 seconds, while one will be born only every nine seconds.

Worldwide, 4.3 babies will be born and two people will die each second in January.

More states saw population gains in 2023 than in any year since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Ultimately, fewer deaths paired with rebounding immigration resulted in the nation experiencing its largest population gain since 2018,” said Kristie Wilder, a demographer with the bureau’s population division.

How does the U.S. compare to the world?

As of July, the Census Bureau found the U.S. was the third-most populous country in the world. China had the most people with 1.41 billion. India had slightly fewer – 1.399 billion.

After the U.S. comes Indonesia, Pakistan, Nigeria, Brazil, Bangladesh, Russia and Mexico, according to the bureau.

The United Nations estimated the world’s population will increase by nearly 2 billion over the next 30 years or so, reaching 9.7 billion in 2050 and possibly peaking at nearly 10.4 billion in the 2080s. More than half of the world’s population growth for the next couple decades is expected to be driven by gains in Africa, according to the agency.

The U.N. Population Fund said the global population crossed the 7 billion mark in 2011. Historically, it took hundreds of thousands of years to reach a single billion, before growing sevenfold in roughly two centuries, the U.N. said. Recent dramatic growth has largely been driven by more people surviving to reproductive age, along with more urbanization and large-scale migration. 

Calculating the number of people is not a perfect science with “many sources of uncertainty in estimating the global population,” the Census Bureau said. It estimated the world reached 8 billion people on Sept. 26, while the U.N. timed the milestone nearly one year earlier.

Most populous places within the U.S.

California is the most populated state in the country with nearly 39 million people, followed by Texas with about 31 million, according to the bureau. New York City is the most populous city with more than 8 million inhabitants. 

The national population growth in 2023 was largely driven by the South, the bureau said, the most populous region and only one to maintain population growth throughout the pandemic.

Texas added more residents than any other state, gaining more than 473,000 people, followed by Florida’s 365,000 new inhabitants. 

As of Thursday, the national population was 335,878,946.