The U.S. Census Bureau reported Thursday that Illinois shrank by an estimated 104,000 residents from 2021 to 2022, a contraction surpassed only by New York and California.
The picture was even gloomier when considering the rate of population loss. Illinois declined by 0.8% to 12.6 million people, a rate topped only by New York’s 0.9% loss.
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The figures take into account births, deaths and moves in and out of states. Illinois also ranked third in net migration loss, at 141,000.
The estimates suggest Illinois is an outlier in the Midwest. All the surrounding states notched modest population gains, while Ohio and Michigan suffered smaller losses.
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Meanwhile, the population continues to boom in much of the South and West. Florida led the way with a nearly 2% jump in one year, followed closely by Idaho and South Carolina.
The new Illinois figures are a departure from happier news the Census Bureau delivered in May. The bureau reported the decennial census, which found that the state had lost 18,000 people between 2010 and 2020, had likely undercounted the population by about 2%. Gov. J.B. Pritzker touted the news as evidence that Illinois is “a state on the rise.”
But a bureau spokesperson said both sets of numbers should be viewed with caution. The May figures came with a margin of error, she said, while the figures released Thursday are not an actual count but estimates based on third-party data from the IRS, Medicare and keepers of vital statistics.
Check back for more details.
