Immigration in 2024 drove U.S. population growth to its fastest rate in 23 years as the nation surpassed 340 million residents, the U.S. Census Bureau said Thursday.
The 1% growth rate this year was the highest it has been since 2001, and it was a marked contrast to the record low of 0.2% set in 2021 at the height of pandemic restrictions on travel to the United States, according to the annual population estimates.
Immigration this year increased by almost 2.8 million people, partly because of a new method of counting that adds people who were admitted for humanitarian reasons. Net international migration accounted for 84% of the nation’s 3.3 million-person increase between 2023 and 2024.
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