L.A. County continued to lose population even as other areas grew, data show
Los Angeles County was one of the urban areas that was hit hardest by significant population drops at the beginning of the pandemic.
But while some other urban counties began to rebound in 2021-22 with rising population numbers, Los Angeles County continued to lose people, new data show.
According to a new census report, more than two-thirds of America’s largest counties — those with more than 100,000 people — saw population gains from July 2021 to July 2022.
Los Angeles County lost 90,704 people during that period, one of several big California counties to see a population drop.
Still, the L.A. County declines marked an improvement from the 2020-2021 period, when the county lost 180,394 people.
See the ZIP Codes in California which had the most net move-ins and move-outs from 2019 to 2022. One million more people moved out of California homes than into them over the last four years.
Demographic experts stressed that the data reflect movements of the population when COVID-19 was still a major concern — and that it is possible Los Angeles County’s population could be starting to rebound, and that numbers from 2022-23 will bear that out.
Remote work has allowed people in many parts of the country to move out of cities to less expensive areas. It still remains unclear how many of those who left L.A. will eventually move back. And some state officials have argued the trends suggest that the “California exodus” is ebbing.
Los Angeles County has a “continuous inflow and outflow of population,” but the pandemic disrupted that, said Dowell Myers, a professor of policy, planning and demography at USC.
“The next year’s data will tell us much more about the recovery from the pandemic,” he said.
During the pandemic in L.A. County, “everybody moved kind of outward a notch,” Myers said. “Or way out to Palm Springs.”
A worker who needs to go into the city only once a week can afford to commute for several hours, he added, much like the way people commute into New York City from the suburbs.
There are clear indications that Los Angeles has experienced some pandemic recovery over the last year — including growing gridlock on freeways, crowded airports and the return to on-site work in more sectors of the economy.
But office occupancy in L.A. remains a concern — especially in some areas such as downtown Los Angeles. And many remained squeezed by high rents and home values.
The Los Angeles County losses were largely due to net domestic out-migration — the difference between the number of people who move in and those who move out. Between 2021 and 2022, 142,953 more people left Los Angeles County than moved there, according to census numbers.
That’s down from the previous year, when domestic out-migration was 194,804 people.
Migration out of the county has increased, with cost-of living increases and the rise of working from home likely to blame. Immigration has decreased due in part to federal policies and pandemic restrictions. The overall effect is a drop in population without as much impact from the usual mitigating factors of immigration and natural increase — or births outpacing deaths.
It is important to note that Los Angeles County — still the most populous in the nation at more than 9.7 million people — is not a leader in population loss on a percentage basis. Those tended to be smaller counties.
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California’s Lassen County holds the dubious honor of national leader based on percentage, with 6% of the rural county’s population departing from July 2021 to July 2022, putting the county’s population at 29,904.
On the opposite side of the nation, New York County, which had a greater percentage loss than any county from July 2020 to July 2021, rebounded in 2022, gaining 17,472 people. After having net domestic out-migration of 98,566 in the first year of the two-year census survey referenced in the study, the county saw positive domestic migration in the more recent year.
San Francisco County saw a domestic out-migration of 9,421 people in 2022, compared with 57,611 the year before.
California’s Santa Clara and Alameda counties also continued to see population loss in 2021-22, each losing around 15,000 people.
Nationally, populations are shifting to the Southwest. Only 50 of the country’s most populous counties were in the South and West in 1980. By 2010, that number was 58.
Now, 63 of the country’s 100 most populous counties are in those regions. Much of California, however, has been left out of the growth.
Also of interest to demographers is a decline in birthrates. In 2022, nearly three-fourths of America’s counties reported more deaths than births.
Data from the California Department of Finance show that births exceeded deaths by about 20,000 in Los Angeles County between July 1, 2021, and July 1, 2022.
“This is a worldwide phenomenon that’s not unique to California,” Richard Green, director of the USC Lusk Center for Real Estate, said on the decline in birthrates. “We are starting to develop evidence that housing has something to do with it. As housing gets more expensive, you see people less likely to leave the paternal or maternal home, the family home.”
California lost more people than any state besides New York between April 2020 and July 2022, data show. Texas gained nearly 900,000 people in the same period.
This can feed into income inequality, because households with married couples tend to make more money, which is particularly an issue in California, where housing costs can be nearly unaffordable for a single person.
“We need to build housing. We don’t have places for people,” Green said about the declining birthrate. “That’s one of the things that’s driving this performance.”
Declining population is not just a numbers game — it can have real economic consequences, according to experts. To power our economy, Myers said, “we need those workers and we need their kids.”
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