Confetti falls on revelers during New Year's festivities in Times Square on January 1, 2024, in New York City. (Photo by Gary Hershorn/Getty Images)
By Mike Schneider
The world population grew by 75 million people over the past year and on New Year's Day, it was estimated to stand at more than 8 billion people, according to figures released by the U.S. Census Bureau on Thursday.
The worldwide growth rate in the past year was just under 1%. At the start of 2024, 4.3 births and two deaths are expected worldwide every second, according to the Census Bureau figures.
The growth rate for the United States in the past year was 0.53%, about half the worldwide figure. The U.S. added 1.7 million people and will have a population on New Year's Day of 335.8 million people.
If the current pace continues through the end of the decade, the 2020s could be the slowest-growing decade in U.S. history, yielding a growth rate of less than 4% over the 10-year-period from 2020 to 2030, said William Frey, a demographer at The Brookings Institution.
The slowest-growing decade currently was in the aftermath of the Great Depression in the 1930s, when the growth rate was 7.3%.
“Of course growth may tick up a bit as we leave the pandemic years. But it would still be difficult to get to 7.3%,” Frey said.
At the start of 2024, the United States is expected to experience one birth every nine seconds and one death every 9.5 seconds. However, immigration will keep the population from dropping. Net international migration is expected to add one person to the U.S. population every 28.3 seconds. This combination of births, deaths and net international migration will increase the U.S. population by one person every 24.2 seconds.
A woman convicted of murder in the shooting death of rising professional cyclist Anna Moriah Wilson faces up to life in prison in Texas when sentenced in a case that led investigators on a 43-day international search to find her.
Jurors failed to reach a unanimous verdict on federal civil rights charges Thursday in the trial of a former Louisville police officer charged in the police raid that killed Breonna Taylor, prompting the judge to declare a mistrial.
Communications systems in the Gaza Strip were down for a second day with no fuel to power the internet and phone networks, causing aid agencies to halt cross-border deliveries of humanitarian supplies even as they warned people may soon face starvation.
Nearly nine out of 10 parents believe their child is performing at grade level despite standardized tests showing far fewer students are on track, according to a poll released Wednesday by Gallup and the nonprofit Learning Heroes.
An Iowa teen convicted in the 2021 beating death of a high school Spanish teacher was sentenced Wednesday to life in prison with a possibility of parole in 25 years.
There were still deep differences on economic competition and global security threats. But Biden said they agreed to “pick up the phone” and talk if urgent issues arise. Biden said “that's important progress."
Israel has threatened to expand operations in the south, where hundreds of thousands of people who heeded earlier evacuation orders are crowded into U.N.-run shelters and family homes.
