U.S. Census Bureau Finds Anything But A Pandemic 'Baby Boom' In 2021
By Richard Horgan
Los Angeles (Knewz) — It's not often when perusing U.S. Census Bureau data that the figure 100 percent pops up.
But in a table estimating the number of counties in each state where deaths exceeded births in 2021, there is that ominous '100' statistic. For Maine, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Delaware.
Meaning that in those four states, not a single county is expected to have more births than deaths last year. It's part of a broader pattern making the U.S. Northeast the region of the country with the most prevalent overall lean towards this trend.
Now of course, this begs the question, which states in 2021 had the lowest amount of counties with more deaths than births. In other words, where were there signs of a localized pandemic baby boom?
The District Of Columbia has a big fat zero, leading the way, but that's deceptive as it only encompasses 10 counties and has logged that number every year. In a truer sense, Utah stayed the population-growth course in 2021 with a low 10 percent rate of counties with more deaths than births, followed by Alaska (20 percent).
Historically, as one of the fastest growing states over the past few decades, Utah has always had a very low measure on this front, all the way down to three percent in 2011, 2012 and 2020.
California is the only large state with a death counties vs. birth counties rate lower than half (43 percent). All the other remaining below-50 states are small: Idaho, Hawaii and South Dakota.
These are preliminary figures, based on 2019 Census data and subsequent National Center For Health Statistics numbers, so state rankings and numbers could change. But as it stands, a whopping 25 states had a higher rate of deaths than births across counties in 2021. The highest previous number, from 2011 through 2020, was eight states.
Richard Horgan has worked for decades as a print, radio and digital journalist, beginning with Associated Press Canada. Prior to joining Knewz.com as West Coast Editor in 2021, Horgan was a longtime columnist for Adweek and Mediabistro, covering media and entertainment. He has also served as editor-in-chief of FilmStew, film commentator for Fandango and columnist for TMZ during the site's earliest days.
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