U.S. population hits 330 million

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The U.S. population hit 330 million at 8:02 a.m. Thursday, according to U.S. Census Bureau estimates.

That’s a net gain of one person every 16 seconds as measured by the U.S. Population Clock since the 2010 census counted 308,745,538 residents, according to a news release.

“Using administrative records, we measure change since the last census,” Luke Rogers, chief of the Population Estimates Branch, said in the release. “We release estimates for many groups and geographies. … PEP estimates are used in federal and state funding allocations, as survey controls, as denominators for a variety of rates calculated by other agencies, and for countless research projects by academics, media, and others interested in how the United States is changing.”

The bureau’s Population Estimates Program calculates three components of change: births, deaths and migration. According to the population clock, the U.S. has one birth every eight seconds, one death every 12 and a net gain of one international migrant every 47 seconds.  

The 2020 census is ongoing. Its final results will effect population estimates until the next census in 2030, Rogers said.

"The accuracy of the 2020 Census is imperative,” Rogers said. “A good census will help us produce accurate estimates across the entire next decade.”

The population clock is based on a series of short-term projections which include people whose usual residence is in the 50 states and the District of Columbia. The projections do not include members of the Armed Forces overseas, their dependents, or other U.S. citizens residing outside the country.

The projections are based on a monthly series of population estimates starting with the April 1, 2010 population recorded by the 2010 census.

The clock shows California to be the most populous state, with more than 39.5 million residents as of 2019. Texas is second with nearly 29 million residents.  The South is the most populous region, with more than 125,000 million residents.

The U.S. is the world’s third-most populous country, though far behind China, with nearly 1.4 billion residents, and India, with more than 1.3 billion.