New York gained population in 2017 — but it wasn’t reason to celebrate for officials, who lived through another Census review, which highlighted significant losses to other states.
In fact, even as the state’s population grew to 19,849,399 — up some 13,000 over the previous one — the state ranked 41st in overall growth.
More troubling was the migration of New York residents to other states. The U.S. Census Bureau noted that over 190,000 people left New York for other states. It’s not a new trend, but one that officials hoped to stop before now.
New York lost more than 60,000 residents in the most-recent reporting period. The only state in the U.S. that performed worse was Illinois.
The fastest-growing states in 2017 were Idaho, Nevada, Utah, Washington and Florida, according to the data. It was just two years ago that New York was passed by Florida to become the third-largest state in the U.S.
Now, Florida is more than a million residents ahead of New York.
Officials have lamented for years that the industrial stagnation in New York is killing success, and a state like Florida, which in decades past was not viable for such development has become ripe.
The growth is bullish, according to reporting by the Tampa Bay Times, who reported on impressive figures earlier this year. U.S. growth has averaged 2.1 percent in GDP, but Florida has seen increases above 3 percent in both 2016 and 2017.
Officials say that changes are necessary in New York, but taking signals from Governor Andrew Cuomo — rougher times could be ahead if the state does not correct shortfalls created by the recently-passed GOP tax plan.
