State Shows Sharp Drop in Population Growth : Survey: Increase of 1.8% is smallest since 1975. Growth rate in Orange County was slowest since 1984.

California last year grew at the slowest pace in nearly two decades as the state’s stagnant economy discouraged people from moving into the state and prompted others to leave in search of a better life, the Wilson Administration said Wednesday.

The state’s population grew by 570,000 to 31.5 million people during 1992, according to the latest survey by the Department of Finance.

That was a growth rate of just 1.8%, the lowest increase since 1975.

Orange County’s growth rate of 2.1% last year was its slowest since 1984, when the population increased just 1.9% as the construction of new homes nearly stopped in the aftermath of a deep recession.

“It’s a reflection of the economy, especially in Southern California,” said John Malson, a state demographer who helped prepare the survey. “The growth rates in many of the counties in Southern California dropped quite a bit. As Southern California goes, so goes the state.”

Malson said the latest numbers do not contradict a recent department report that predicted that California’s population would grow relentlessly for the next half-century, eventually doubling to more than 60 million people. He said that report envisioned that the state’s population growth would slow for a time due to the current condition of the economy before rebounding and resuming its rapid rate of expansion.

Peter Morrison, a demographer for the RAND Corp., the Santa Monica-based think tank, agreed. He pointed out that the state’s 1.8% growth rate still is far higher than the national average of about 1.1%.

“This is an aberration,” Morrison said. “What we are getting is just sort of an adjustment. The bottom line is that California’s growth rate has dipped down to what may be historically low levels, but nonetheless the state still is growing far more rapidly than the nation as a whole.”

Several cities in southern Orange County, for instance, were among the fastest-growing in the state.

Mission Viejo grew by 11.8% during 1992, making it the fastest-growing municipality with a population of more than 50,000. But that increase was largely attributable to the city’s annexation of Aegean Hills, a community of 7,000 that boosted Mission Viejo’s population to 84,100.

Tustin, meanwhile, was the fifth fastest-growing at 5.8% to 57,500. Laguna Niguel was eighth on the list, jumping 4.8% to 52,600. In both cities, the growth was fueled by the addition during the year of newly developed neighborhoods.

Costa Mesa also hit a milestone, becoming one of 47 cities in California with a population of more than 100,000. The city grew by a relatively modest 2.6% during 1992, but it was enough to send the population up from 98,400 in 1991 to 101,000 the following year.

Most of the growth that did occur throughout the state in 1992 came from the natural increase of births over deaths, which has held steady at about 390,000 a year since 1990.

Net migration to California declined to 180,000, a sharp drop from its peak of 433,000 in 1989 and the lowest level since 1973.

The growth from migration is primarily the result of immigration from foreign countries, Malson said. More people left California for other states than moved here, he said, although precise numbers are not yet available.

Los Angeles County, where the economy is ailing more than elsewhere, had the lowest growth rate in the state, with the county’s population increasing by less than 1%, to 9.2 million. Los Angeles nevertheless had the largest numerical growth of any county, with an increase of 84,000.

The Los Angeles increase was due entirely to a natural increase--141,000 more births than deaths during the year. Migration was responsible for a net loss to the county of 57,000 residents.

Imperial County had the highest growth rate, increasing by 10% during the year. Much of that increase was attributed to growth in the prison population and the staff at a new prison there.

Orange County grew by 2.1% to 2.6 million; Riverside County grew 3.7% to 1.3 million; San Bernardino County’s population increased by 2.8% to 1.6 million; San Diego County grew by 1.7% to reach 2.6 million, and Ventura County grew by 1.5% to 700,100.

The state Finance Department’s population estimates are based on the 1990 census, adjusted after studying trends in new construction, the number of utility customers, drivers license records and school enrollment.

The announcement that the state’s population growth is slowing was another modest indicator that there may be a silver lining in the black economic cloud hanging over the state: As fewer people move here, fewer will need state services.

Just 18 months ago, Gov. Pete Wilson predicted that the state would suffer double-digit growth in welfare cases for years, with the growth bottoming out at 8% a year throughout the 1990s. Instead, the growth in the number of welfare recipients peaked in October, 1991, and has dropped every month since then to 6.4% in November, 1992, the last month for which numbers are available.

And although Wilson said school enrollments were “set to explode” and projected that they would grow by about 200,000 a year throughout the decade, enrollments now are expected to climb by just 85,000 in the current school year.

Yet Wilson’s contention that the state is suffering an alarming loss of residents in their prime tax-paying years continues to be borne out by the data.

According to the latest survey of state driver’s license records, California continues to gain population from other states in the 18 to 29 age group, with 46,000 more people in that group moving to the state than moved out in the year ending June 30, 1992.

But people in the 30 to 64 age group, considered by state budget writers to be the prime wage earners, left in greater numbers than they moved into the state. Records show about 214,000 left; only 165,000 moved in.

O.C. Population Up 2.1%

1992 1993 Pct. change Anaheim 279,100 285,500 2.3 Brea 33,500 34,000 1.5 Buena Park 70,700 71,700 1.4 Costa Mesa 98,400 101,000 2.6 Cypress 44,150 44,950 1.8 Dana Point 33,150 33,950 2.4 Fountain Valley 53,800 54,300 0.9 Fullerton 117,300 119,500 1.9 Garden Grove 147,900 149,700 1.2 Huntington Beach 184,800 186,900 1.1 Irvine 114,800 117,900 2.7 Laguna Beach 23,900 24,250 1.5 Laguna Hills 24,500 25,000 2.0 Laguna Niguel 50,200 52,600 4.8 La Habra 52,300 53,200 1.7 Lake Forest 57,400 58,200 1.4 La Palma 15,600 15,650 0.3 Los Alamitos 12,100 12,150 0.4 Mission Viejo 75,200 84,100 11.8 Newport Beach 68,000 68,800 1.2 Orange 114,400 116,300 1.7 Placentia 41,800 43,100 3.1 San Clemente 43,150 44,150 2.3 San Juan Capistrano 27,400 27,900 1.8 Santa Ana 304,500 308,400 1.3 Seal Beach 25,400 26,050 2.6 Stanton 31,350 32,000 2.1 Tustin 54,300 57,500 5.9 Villa Park 6,325 6,400 1.2 Westminster 79,900 81,100 1.5 Yorba Linda 55,000 56,500 2.7 Unincorporated 164,400 164,900 0.3

Source: State Department of Finance, Demographic Research Unit