“We haven’t had population loss.” It’s a claim Gov. JB Pritzker and his allies have made before, and it’s preposterous. Unfortunately, they get away with it because the media and many of our supposed watchdogs let them.
By Mark Glennon and John Klingner | Wirepoints
Deputy Illinois Governor Andy Manar said this last week:
We haven’t had population loss. There have never been more people living in the State of Illinois than there is today. In the census there’s a thing called the post enumeration survey (PES) that shows that Illinois gained population. It’s a correction. and it’s a real correction from the Census Bureau…. Illinois is not losing people, it is gaining people.
It’s a claim Gov. JB Pritzker and his allies have made before.
It’s preposterous.
Manar has no basis for his claims and overwhelming evidence says, instead, that Illinois has lost population year after year, probably a decade. Making matters worse, Manar’s claim was blindly accepted by Better Government Association President David Greising who moderated the panel where Manar made the claim.
Here are the facts:
For starters, the ten-year census on which Manar relied is four years old now. Not only does he ignore what’s happened since April 1, 2020, the census effective date, but his claim of “never been more people living in the State of Illinois” isn’t true either. The decennial census showed a small loss of 18,124 people over the decade, but the flight problem did not become apparent until about 2014. That’s when annual census estimates, as well as other evidence, began to show the downturn, continuing every year thereafter. Illinois population therefore probably peaked about then, not now as Manar claims.
Further, April 2020 is about when violent crime skyrocketed, including the 2020 riots in Chicago that summer, which one can reasonably assume contributed to flight from the state. Direct evidence of what has happened since April 2020 indicates accelerating flight. For that, we can start with the Census Bureau’s annual estimates, which show further decline each year since 2020. We lost a net 100,016 people in 2021, and another 107,826 in 2022 and a further loss of 32,826 people in 2023.
As for the Post Enumerations Survey (PES) Manar focused on, no, it does not officially alter the results of the 2020 decennial census, which showed the small 18,124 loss. The PES is a survey conducted after every census to attempt to identify potential errors. It’s based on answers from just 0.1% of American households, which the census says is too small to make any official changes with.
Finally, the Census Bureau recently announced it would do a one-time adjustment of Illinois’ population based on an undercount identified by the Post-Census Group Quarters Review (PCGQR). The change adds 46,400 Illinoisans, which the census says it will use to adjust future, annual estimates. That tiny adjustment hardly dents the far bigger losses since 2020.
Beyond Census Bureau numbers, we can look at IRS migration data. The IRS numbers are precise because they know exactly how many people file returns and where they are moving to and from. We’ve documented those numbers year after year. For 2022, the most recent year reported by the IRS, Illinois netted a loss of 87,000 residents, with 175,000 moving into Illinois from other states and 262,000 moving out. Since 2000, Illinois has lost a net 1.6 million people to net out-migration, according to the IRS data.
How about moving van numbers? Headlines have been routine for years about numbers from moving companies showing Illinois among the nation’s biggest losers. The most recent annual study from United Van Lines, for example, says Illinois had the highest percentage of moves being outbound: 61%.
When Manar made his population claims, Greising’s response was “Oh, okay, sorry…. Okay, Okay.” Shame on Greising. The facts laid out above have been long published by many sources and it’s inexcusable for him to kowtow to conflicting government propaganda, which he is supposed to be challenging.
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