In this Dec. 7, 2020, file photo, a person wearing a protective mask walks in front of the skyline on Bernal Heights Hill during the coronavirus pandemic in San Francisco. California's population has declined for the first time in its history. State officials announced Friday, May 7, 2021, that the nation's most populous state lost 182,083 people in 2020. California's population is now just under 39.5 million. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu, File)
By Adam Beam
California’s population fell by more than 182,000 people in 2020, marking the first year-over-year loss ever recorded for the nation’s most populous state.
State officials announced Friday that California’s population dipped 0.46% to just under 39.5 million people from January 2020 to January 2021.
The news comes one week after the U.S. Census Bureau announced a paltry population growth for California, resulting in the state losing a congressional seat for the first time because it grew more slowly than other states over the past decade.
But the census numbers reflect the state’s population in April 2020. The new state numbers released Friday reflect the state’s population as of January 2021.
California became a state in 1850 on the heels of a gold rush that prompted people to seek their fortune out west. The population soared following World War II with the help of a robust defense and aerospace industry. It boomed again in the 1980s and 1990s as technology companies put Silicon Valley on the map.
But the growth slowed after the end of the Cold War in the 1990s when the federal government cut back on defense spending and again in the years before the Great Recession in the late 2000s.
State officials say California has seen more people leave than move in from other states for much of the last three decades. However, that had been offset by international immigration and births so that California continued to grow.
That changed in 2020. State officials say a declining birth rate, plus reductions in international immigration and an increase in deaths because of the coronavirus, led to the state's first-ever year-over-year population loss.
California had a negative international migration in 2020, which state officials say was a direct impact from the Trump administration's decision to stop issuing new visas for much of that year. Coronavirus restrictions around the world also caused about a 29% decline in international students coming to California or about 53,000 people.
Plus, about 51,000 people died from the coronavirus in California last year. That's a 19% increase above the state's average death rate for the past three years. In all, 51 of the state's 58 counties posted death rates above the three-year average — including 12 that had increases of 20% or more.
In a news release, the California Department of Finance said it expects the state to return to a “slightly positive annual growth” for the 2021 calendar year. Those numbers will be released next May.
The state's population has become a political issue this year in light of the effort to recall Gov. Gavin Newsom, with Republicans blaming high taxes and the governor's policies for people fleeing the state. From 2010 to 2020, about 6.1 million people left California for other states compared to about 4.9 million people who moved to California from other states, according to an analysis of census data by the Public Policy Institute of California.
The Department of Finances population estimate comes from a number of sources, including birth and death counts, the number of new driver's licenses and address changes, school enrollments, and federal tax returns.
Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy addresses the U.S. Congress today, enough of changing our clocks for Daylight Savings, and the Eiffel Tower gets a few feet taller. Here is all the news you Need2Know for Wednesday, March 16, 2022.
Food technology startup Tender Food raised $12 million in a seed round led by Chris Sacca's Lowercarbon Capital. Tender says it specializes in creating alternative meats with an authentic texture and is on a mission to make alternative meats so delicious, nutritious, and affordable, that eating meat from animals will no longer make sense. Christophe Chantre, co-founder & CEO of Tender Food, joins Cheddar News' Closing Bell to discuss.
With the number of Ukrainians being displaced due to the Russian invasion surging, two students from Harvard took it on themselves to develop a website to help connect potential hosts with refugees seeking housing. The co-founder of the website Ukraine Takes Shelter, Marco Burstein, joined Cheddar news to discuss working together with fellow freshman Avi Schiffmann to streamline the effort to aid Ukrainian refugees. "We basically worked for three days straight developing the website, and since then the response has been pretty incredible," Burstein said.
Over three weeks ago, WNBA player Brittney Griner was arrested in Russia on drug charges. According to reports, the Star arrived at an airport near Moscow where authorities found Vape cartridges and hashish oil in her luggage. Grindr faces serious charges that could carry a possible sentence of 5-10 years in a Russian prison. Experts warn that Griner's arrest could be used as a bargaining chip. Partner at Stroock & Stroock & Lavan, Thomas Firestone, joined Cheddar to discuss more.
Image-sharing social media platform Pinterest is marking Women's History Month through its Pinterest Elevates program, designed to help grow 10 underrepresented businesses with monetary and strategic support. Alise Marshall, senior global lead for public affairs at Pinterest, joined Cheddar News to explain how the program is helping to uplift women and women of color with businesses of their own. “This was in response to issues that we saw happening in the community, and ways that we thought that we were uniquely positioned to respond," she said.
A new report from the Motion Picture Association highlights how the popularity of streaming services has helped the film industry recover from the pandemic. Matthew Belloni, the host of "The Town" podcast and founding partner of Puck News, joined Cheddar News to discuss the impact of streaming on Hollywood. "For all but the largest tent-pole style blockbuster movies, the future probably is streaming," he said.
In the new comedic film "Linoleum," an Ohio family faces the adventure of a lifetime after a mysterious satellite lands in their yard. The suburban dad, played by comic Jim Gaffigan, takes the opportunity to fulfill his childhood dream of becoming an astronaut by re-building the machine as his very own rocket ship. Gaffigan and co-star Rhea Seehorn joined Cheddar News senior reporter Michelle Castillo at South by Southwest 2022, to chat about the science fiction roles, with the actors noting that they didn't quite understand the jargon. "Jim and I had some late night googling sessions of what we were saying in the, in the scenes, but it was fun," Seehorn said.
The pandemic has turned the world of dating upside down. So what's making daters smile, and what are they looking for in a partner? Cheddar breaks down the findings from eharmony's 2022 Happiness Index study that break down the current state of dating.
Anna Sorokin, the convicted swindler who claimed to be a German heiress to finance a posh lifestyle in New York, is making a new bid to fight deportation, a lawyer said Tuesday.
