Census Bureau Says US Population Reached Milestone in July

WASHINGTON – Data for the 2020 census is still being collected, but the Census Bureau reports the U.S. population has already achieved a population milestone this summer — topping 330 million people.

The agency said based on the population “clock” it maintains the milestone was reached at exactly 8:02 a.m. eastern time on July 23.

Ten years ago, when the 2010 census was being counted, a total of 308,745,538 people were living in the United States.

Since the milestone was reached, the population had gained an additional 160,000 people as this story went to press.

The clock shows a net gain of one person every 16 seconds through a population estimates program which calculates the three components of change: births, deaths, and migration.

According to the agency, the United States experiences one birth every 8 seconds; one death every 12 seconds; one international migrant (net) every 47 seconds; and a net gain of one person every 16 seconds.

“Using administrative records, we measure change since the last census,” said Luke Rogers, chief of the Population Estimates Branch, in a written statement. “We release estimates for many groups and geographies.”

“PEP estimates are used in federal and state funding allocations, as survey controls, as denominators for a variety of rates calculated by other agencies, and for countless research projects by academics, media, and others interested in how the United States is changing,” Rogers said.

The last milestone the bureau celebrated — based on an old, and now superseded, series of estimates – was 325 million on May 7, 2017, at 6:13 a.m. eastern time.

Results of the 2020 Census will have a major impact on all population estimates until the next census in 2030.

“The accuracy of the 2020 census is imperative,” Rogers said. “A good census will help us produce accurate estimates across the entire next decade.”