Idaho population increased during 2014

December 25, 2014

Enough people moved into Idaho in 2014 to cause a net increase in the population by an amount almost equal to the combined populations of Bonners Ferry and Sandpoint. Comparatively strong migration into Idaho from other states and nations during 2014 pushed Idaho's total population up just over 1.3 percent, ninth strongest in the nation and the highest one-year gain since 2008 before the recession took hold. Looking at new move-ins alone, nearly 9,400 more people moved to Idaho from other states and countries than moved out of the state between mid-2013 and mid-2014, the highest net in-migration total since 2008. Three-quarters of those inmigrants were from other states. The U.S. Census Bureau on Tuesday estimated Idaho's population at 1,634,464 in mid-2014, with a combined total of births and new move-ins raising the population to more than 21,000 from a year earlier. That was two-tenths of a percentage point stronger than the state's population growth between mid-2012 and mid-2013. Nationally, the population was up 0.7 percent to almost 319 million. Growth was 0.8 percent between mid-2012 and mid-2013. North Dakota and its oil boom led the nation with a 2.2 percent increase in population. Six states, Illinois, West Virginia, Connecticut, New Mexico, Alaska and Vermont, lost population. From 1990 through 2010 Idaho posted annual population growth rates of more than 1 percent, exceeding 2 percent a year during the mid-2000s expansion and 3 percent in 1993 and 1994. In 2011 growth slid to just 0.8 percent, a tenth more than the national rate, and then to 0.7 percent in 2012 to match the national increase.