Florida regains its population growth mojo

The Florida floodgates are wide open — with people, that is.

After an oft-reported lull in new Floridians from 2009 to 2013 — where the annual percentage population increase varied from 0.39% to 0.97% and never surpassed 1% — the Sunshine State has officially regained its migration mojo. In a sizable shift, the state’s population has grown by at least 1.29% every year since 2014, according to a report from the state’s Demographic Estimating Conference, held earlier this summer.

And that growth rate is going to expand in the next half-decade, the report projects, if not returning to the heady days of the early and mid-2000s, when some 1,000 people a day moved to Florida. Some years it was more than 1,000 new residents, with at least a 2% growth rate each year from 2000 through 2006.

The report projects at least 300,000 people will move to Florida per year through 2024, which brings the total state population to the cusp of 23 million by 2025. On average, the report adds, population growth is expected to hit 330,605 net new residents per year between April 1, 2018, and April 1, 2024. That’s 906 people per day, at a compound growth rate of 1.53% over this six‐year horizon. “These increases are analogous to adding a city slightly larger than Orlando every year,” the report states.

There are two distinct notes to the growth parade. One is the projected growth rate, though up from the recession, is predicted to slow a bit each year through 2024. And second, the average number of people per household is projected to decline — the continuation of a trend that began in 2012. On raw people, the report predicts that the Florida average household size will fall from 2.53 people in 2012 to 2.46 by 2029.

Year    population     % change

2018   20,840568     —

2019   21,200,796    1.73%

2020   21,546,885    1.63%

2021   21,881,835    1.55%

2022   22,206,881    1.49%

2023   22,521,566    1.42%

2024   22,824,196    1.34%