Around New England

Massachusetts Population Grows

January 1, 2020

Massachusetts has far more people than it did in 2010.

The state’s population increased by about 340,000 people, increasing its total to more than 6.8 million residents as of July 2019, according to U.S. Census data announced Monday, December 30. That’s a 5.3 percent increase over the approximately 6.5 million people who lived in the state in 2010, according to MassLive.

Yet Massachusetts is also among the top states in terms of net domestic migration loss in recent years. Between 2018 and 2019, the Bay State lost a net of 30,274 people. That put the state fifth in the nation in losses behind California, New York, Illinois and New Jersey. Massachusetts was one of 27 states to experience net domestic migration population loss.

Overall, the Northeast saw a population decline for the decade, as MassLive reports. It had a net loss of 63,817 people, about one-tenth of 1 percent of its 55,982,803 people.

In the country as a whole, population growth slowed. The number of births in the United States in the 2010s was less than one million more than the than the number of deaths.

“While natural increase is the biggest contributor to the U.S. population increase, it has been slowing over the last five years,” Dr. Sandra Johnson, a U.S. Census Bureau statistician, said in a statement.

Following the 2020 elections, Congressional districts will be updated across the country to reflect the nation’s population. According to CBS News, however, Massachusetts is not among the states most likely to lose or gain a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives.