Illinois’ population decline has been accelerating during the past 7 years, while neighboring states gain from that loss.
Illinois lost three times as many residents as any other state during the past decade.
While total numbers for the decade were bad, the ongoing worry is because losses were accelerating.
Illinois recorded a seventh straight year of population loss from July 2019 to July 2020, but the year’s drop was historic – 79,487 residents, the most since World War II and the second largest of any state in raw numbers or percentage of population. Larger declines year over year have also caused Illinois to suffer the largest raw decline in population, and second largest on a percentage basis since 2010, shedding 253,015 people – triple any other state’s losses.
Population decline is even worse when you consider the experiences of nearby states last year and during the decade. The Midwest as a whole grew population by 1.34 million from 2010 to 2020, and Illinois was the only state in the entire region to experience population loss during the decade.
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