Florida, under Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, is definitely on fire, as the Biden administration’s latest data show.
The Sunshine State became America’s fastest-growing state for the first time since 1957, according to a U.S. Census Bureau report issued this week.
Bureau analysts reported that Florida’s population increased by 1.9% between 2021 and 2022. The state now claims 22,244,823 residents.
Florida passed Idaho as the previous year’s fastest-growing state.
“For the third-most-populous state to also be the fastest growing is notable because it requires significant population gains,” the analysts noted. They helped explain what happened.
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The bureau noted that Florida’s population is now nine times what it was in 1946, having been on a perpetual upswing since the end of World War II.
“Florida’s percentage increase in population each year has fluctuated but has always been positive” since that time, the report observed.
At times, growth hit as much as 8% a year, as happened in the mid-1950s. Air conditioning was a major reason for this population explosion, the bureau said.
Since 1960, Florida’s population has continually outpaced the nation as a whole, often doubling the national rate of growth.
The Census Bureau noted that Floirda’s lowest rate of growth in the period covered by the study occurred in 2020, as the pandemic kicked in.
But in the past two years, its rate of growth has nearly quadrupled. The bureau pointed out that Florida ranked second national in the actual number of newcomers. In that regard, the Sunshine State trailed only Texas, another conservative state led by Republicans.
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Much of the reason for that growth is Desantis, who has promoted individualism, freedom and personal responsibility, while also challenging leftist orthodoxy on everything from COVID restrictions to law and order to education to illegal immigration to the woke agenda of LGBTQ and Critical Race Theory activists.
The report also indicated why Florida took so long to reclaim the top spot.
Nevada.
Nevada’s 2022 population, although still smaller than that of the Tampa Bay region, is 22 times what it was in 1946. Nevada has reported the fastest population growth in 36 of the 76 years since 1946.
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