Commentary
The pace slowed, but people overall still are exiting California, according to the latest population report by the California Department of Finance. The decline of 138,400 people from 2021 to 2022 dropped the state’s population to 38,940,231, or -0.35 percent. Which put it below 39 million for the first time since 2015. The report notes some of the decline was due to COVID deaths. But other states also suffered such deaths, yet their populations still went up. Florida’s population rose 1.9 percent in 2022.
