The United States population grew last year at one of the slowest rates in its history

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The United States population grew last year at one of the slowest rates in its history, according to new numbers released on Tuesday from the Census Bureau. The immigration numbers plunged by more than 50 percent from the previous year, under the aggressive anti-immigration policies of President Trump.

The nation’s population increased by about 1.8 million over the year, and stood at 341.8 million on July 1, the estimates say. That is a growth rate of about 0.5 percent, the lowest since 2021, when the Covid-19 pandemic caused deaths to soar and borders to close, shutting the door to international migration. That year saw the slowest growth since the nation’s founding.

The new census estimates measure changes in the population from June 30, 2024 to July 1, 2025, capturing the last months of the Biden administration, when it tightened border policies, and the early months of the Trump administration.

Over that time, net immigration added 1.26 million people to the U.S. population. That number is considerably lower than 2024, when under President Biden, immigration reached a record high of 2.73 million.

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Though several estimates have been made of the immigrant population since President Trump came to office, the release by the Census Bureau on Tuesday is the first gold-standard set of federal figures to be released. They attempt to account for both legal and illegal immigration, as well as both deportations and voluntary departures.

Population growth is a measure of a nation’s demographic health, and takes account of births and deaths as well as immigration, emigration and deportation. The country needs a large enough population of young workers and taxpayers to be able to afford to care for the nation’s older residents, whose numbers are swelling as the Baby Boom generation retires.

A sharp drop in the birthrate also contributed to the slowdown in population growth. The birthrate has been falling since the Great Recession in 2008, and new births outpaced deaths by only about 518,000 in the latest period. That is higher than during the peak of the Covid pandemic, when deaths were soaring, but is still extremely low by historical standards.

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The Midwest was the only region where every state grew in population over the year: For the first time in a decade, more people in the United States moved to the region than left it. Ohio and Michigan both gained population, after losses in earlier years. South Carolina is the country’s fastest growing state, while Florida, which had recorded high rates of domestic inward migration, saw a sharp slowdown in the latest period.

The Census Bureau estimates are derived from government records, like birth and death certificates and data on immigration and refugees. This year, the bureau also included new sources of information, including government data from Mexico, to get a more accurate count of the number of people leaving the country.

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