Census: Tennessee population growth rate slowing
KNOXVILLE (AP) — Tennessee added enough people in the past three years to fill a city the size of Chattanooga, but the Volunteer State’s growth rate is slowing, according to new U.S. Census estimates.
In the decade leading up to the 2000 Census, Tennessee experienced a 16.7 percent jump in population — an increase of 812,098 people to just under 5.7 million.
Against a national growth rate of 13.8 percent during the ’90s, Tennessee ranked as the 14th fastest growing state in the country from 1990 to 2000.
Since then, Tennessee has added 152,486 people — about the size of Chattanooga — raising the state’s population to more than 5.8 million, according to U.S. Census estimates released Wednesday.
But the pace of Tennessee’s rising population is falling. The growth rate since 2000 is just 2.7 percent, dropping Tennessee to a middle-of-the-pack ranking of 21st among the states.
The nation’s population has grown 3.3 percent since 2000, and some Tennessee neighbors are growing faster — Georgia is up 6.1 percent, North Carolina is up 4.5 percent and Virginia is up 4.3 percent. The national leader is Nevada at 12.2 percent.
Some Tennessee border states are seeing even less growth — Kentucky, Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama are all at 2 percent or less.
Bruce Ralston, a geography professor who studies demographic trends at the University of Tennessee, suspects economic conditions are driving the population numbers in Tennessee.
“A lot of our growth earlier was related to some of the heavier industries like the automobile industry that has topped out,” he said. “So we are not going to sustain that same level of growth at least from that sector of the economy.”
The lack of job-creating meccas like North Carolina’s Research Triangle or Georgia’s booming metro Atlanta also hurts Tennessee by comparison. So does education level for a state where 54 percent of its residents have no more than a high school diploma.
“Part of what we have seen in the tight economy of the last three years is that jobs are going to go where there is an educated work force, if there is going to be any growth at all,” Ralston said.
The census estimates also showed the number of children younger than 5 grew at a slightly slower rate than the national average — 2 percent in Tennessee versus 3 percent nationally since 2000.
The 65 and older age group in Tennessee grew faster than the national average — 3.3 percent compared to 2.6 percent.
The population of 5- to 13-year-olds actually dropped by 2.1 percent in Tennessee and 0.7 percent nationally, while the number of people 85 and older had the largest increase — up 7.2 percent in Tennessee and 11.2 percent nationally.