San Francisco Population Jumps by 5,000

During the first two years of the pandemic, 30,000 residents hightailed it out of San Francisco. Now people are moving back.

San Francisco had a net increase of 4,682 incoming residents from July 2022 to July this year, both domestic and international migration, the San Francisco Standard reported, citing figures from the state Department of Finance

The uptick over the past year marks the highest population growth from net migration among 58 counties across the state.

Net new migrants equals the number of people who moved in minus the number of people who moved out. Given new births during the period, the population of San Francisco grew by 4,925 to 848,019 residents. In January 2020, before the pandemic, it had 889,783 residents.

The city’s 0.58 percent population growth ranked as one of the highest marks across a state generally characterized by population declines, according to the Standard.

San Francisco ranked third for the number of new residents behind Alameda and Santa Clara counties, which have larger populations and more births than San Francisco.

The city saw a drop of 4,400 people, or 0.5 percent of its population, between July 2021 and July 2022, smaller than the drop of 3.7 percent the year before.

Los Angeles, with 9.8 million residents, saw its population fall by 0.15 percent, or 15,217 people, over the past year.

California, which saw its population grow until the dawn of the pandemic, lost 295,000 people in 2020 and 2021. Last year, the state lost another 37,200 residents.

While the state’s population is in decline, state officials noted the pace of population loss is slowing as pandemic shutdowns have stopped and foreign immigration has rebounded from levels prior to the pandemic.

— Dana Bartholomew