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What are the fastest-growing state populations?

Here’s a look at the population growth in the United States, with cost of living and weather being the top contributing factors.

Published

7 years ago

March 15, 2018

Harry Dent

One of the buzzwords since Trump became president is “growth.” He’s made ridiculous promises about economic growth that he can’t possibly make good on.

But let’s take a look at another type of growth that affects us all: population growth, specifically in the continental U.S.

It should be no surprise that very high-cost states like New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Jersey, California, and Hawaii are NOT growing very fast. Southern Florida isn’t growing as fast as the northern half due to higher costs of living.

And people generally tend to move away from colder Northeastern and Midwestern states to the warmer Southeast and Southwest. But, that doesn’t mean that all warm states are growing like gangbusters … or that all cold states aren’t.

Here’s the map that summarizes growth by state for July 1, 2016, to July 1, 2017:

As you can see, Idaho is growing the fastest at 2.20 percent annualized.

The other top 10 also include:

Nevada, 2.00 percent;
Utah, 1.89 percent;
Washington State, 1.71 percent;
Florida, 1.59 percent;
Arizona, 1.56 percent;
Texas, 1.43 percent;
Colorado, 1.39 percent,
Oregon, 1.39 percent; and
South Carolina at 1.30 percent.

I would have thought Texas and North Carolina would have been higher. Washington State also surprised on the upside as Seattle is becoming Silicon Valley 2.0.

Nine states, ranging from Wyoming to Connecticut, have negative growth rates. Mississippi and Louisiana are negative, despite being in the South. New Mexico is also surprisingly low, being surrounded by four high-growth states.

Where you live will affect business growth and real estate values. So, consider that, especially if you’re retiring. Idaho, Nevada, Washington, Florida and Arizona look like the best places to go to me.

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DISCLAIMER: This article expresses my own ideas and opinions. Any information I have shared are from sources that I believe to be reliable and accurate. I did not receive any financial compensation in writing this post, nor do I own any shares in any company I’ve mentioned. I encourage any reader to do their own diligent research first before making any investment decisions.

(Featured image via DepositPhotos.)

Harry Dent

Harry S. Dent Jr. studied economics in college in the 1970s, receiving his MBA from Harvard Business School, where he was a Baker Scholar and was elected to the Century Club for leadership excellence. Harry grew to find the study of economics vague and inconclusive and became so disillusioned by the state of his chosen profession that he turned his back on it. Instead, he threw himself into the burgeoning new science of finance which married economic research and market research. Identifying and studying demographic trends, business cycles, consumers’ purchasing power and many other trends empowered Harry to forecast economic and market changes. Over the last three decades, he’s spoken to executives, financial advisors and investors around the world. He’s appeared on “Good Morning America,” PBS, CNBC and CNN/FN. He’s been featured in Barron’s, Investor’s Business Daily, Entrepreneur, Fortune, Success, U.S. News and World Report, Business Week, The Wall Street Journal, American Demographics and Omni. He is a regular guest on Fox Business’s “America’s Nightly Scorecard.” Harry has also written numerous best-selling books over the years, such as The Great Boom Ahead, The Roaring 2000s, the Roaring 2000s Investors and The Demographic Cliff. In his most recent book The Sale of a Lifetime: How the Great Bubble Burst of 2017 Can Make You Rich (2016), Harry looks at the upcoming economic crisis and reveals how it could be the single greatest chance to build wealth we’ll ever see and how we can capitalize on such a unique and historical opportunity. He explains how many of the richest Americans in history have used this same kind of opportunity to quickly accumulate incredible amounts of money, in a short period of time.