WASHINGTON: The latest figures from the US Census Bureau said that the world population expanded by 75 million people in the past year, reaching over 8 billion on New Year’s Day. The worldwide population growth rate was slightly below 1 percent. Looking ahead to 2024, the Census Bureau estimates 4.3 births and two deaths per second on a global scale.
In contrast, the US experienced a growth rate of 0.53 percent in the past year, approximately half of the global rate. The US saw an addition of 1.7 million people, bringing the New Year’s Day population to 335.8 million. If the current pace persists throughout the decade, the 2020s could mark the slowest-growing decade in US history, with a growth rate of less than 4 percent from 2020 to 2030, according to William Frey, a demographer at The Brookings Institution.
Frey suggests that the slowest-growing decade on record was during the aftermath of the Great Depression in the 1930s, with a growth rate of 7.3 percent. He noted that while growth may increase somewhat post-pandemic, reaching 7.3 percent would remain challenging.
At the start of 2024, the United States is expected to witness one birth every nine seconds and one death every 9.5 seconds. Nevertheless, immigration is projected to offset population decline, with net international migration contributing one person every 28.3 seconds. The combination of births, deaths, and net international migration is forecasted to result in a net increase of the US population by one person every 24.2 seconds.
