May 2, 2008

A million missing souls

California’s demographers believe that the state’s population edged past 38 million late last year, having added nearly a half-million during the previous 12 months – but their counterparts at the U.S. Census Bureau continue to disagree by a million-plus bodies.

The state’s new estimate is that as of Jan. 1, California’s population stood at just a shade over 38 million, up 490,000 during the previous year thanks to continued high levels of foreign immigration and births. The Department of Finance’s estimates, based on a variety of data, include new numbers for all of the state’s cities that are the basis for various forms of state aid and revenue-sharing.

They calculate, for instance, that Los Angeles, by far the state’s largest city, has now topped 4 million, three times as large as No. 2 San Diego, while No. 3 San Jose is nearing a million people and San Francisco, whose population had stagnated for years, is showing a growth spurt to over 800,000.

While the new numbers are official as far as California goes, the Census Bureau sharply disagrees. It estimates that California’s population stood at just 36.6 million as of last July, more than a million persons lower the state’s figure.

It’s a long-standing statistical conflict rooted largely in sharply varying beliefs about the flow of Californians to other states. The state’s demographers believe that there has been little or no net loss of population from movements into and out of California, while the Census Bureau believes there has been a strong outward flow and net loss since the last census in 2000. And the fact that a substantial amount of California’s population growth stems from illegal immigration, probably about 100,000 per year, adds to the conflict.

The numerical size of the federal-state disagreement on how many human beings occupy California’s 158,693 square miles is no small thing from both financial and political standpoints and may not even be settled by the 2010 census because California leaders have complained for years that the census undercounts the state’s diverse, mobile and partially illegal residents. The census will determine, for example, how many additional congressional seats, if any, the state receives in the next round of reapportionment.

The state’s new population report, with local data, is available here.

Posted by Dan Walters on May 2, 2008 9:12 AM