California population grows with SoCal adding most residents

California’s first population decline has reversed course, with Southern California the epicenter for growth.

The state population, which had declined since 2020, rose last year by 67,100 residents to 39.13 million people, driven largely by lower mortality and rebounding legal immigration, the Orange County Register and New York Times News Service Syndicate reported.

Vaccinations and other public health measures have brought deaths in California down from their pandemic highs. Legal immigration has swung back, in part because of the easing of restrictions on H-1B and other visas during the last year of the Trump administration.

And people are thinking twice before leaving California.

The population of the Golden State grew in 31 of the state’s 58 counties, mostly in the Bay Area, Central Valley and SoCal’s Inland Empire. Riverside, Orange, San Bernardino and Los Angeles counties had a combined growth of 37,086 last year – more than half of the statewide increase.

The growth followed a bump in new housing units, including a net gain of more than 21,000 units in Los Angeles County, more than 5,700 in San Diego County and nearly 2,300 in San Francisco. The state still needs millions of new homes to address its housing shortage.

Efforts to spur more accessory dwelling units gained traction, with the state adding more than 22,800 granny flats.

Compared with the spring of 2020, the state is still down more than 400,000 Californians. From 2020 to 2022, the state population had dropped by an average 196,000 residents per year. In the previous decade, the state gained on average 240,000 residents per year.

Statewide, the population grew by 0.17 percent last year — or 0.21 percent in four Southern California counties and 0.14 percent elsewhere.

The population in Riverside County last year grew 0.57 percent, adding 13,798 residents to 2.44 million, according to the Register. San Bernardino County grew 0.4 percent, adding 8,739 residents to 2.18 million.

Orange County grew 0.31 percent, adding 9,770 residents to 3.15 million. At the same time, Los Angeles County grew 0.05 percent, adding 4,779 residents to 9.82 million.

— Dana Bartholomew

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