Immigration Laws: April, 1995 - Number #4

The US population was estimated to be 260 million on July 1, 1994, up from 249 million in 1990. There are about four million births annually, and two million deaths, so that natural increase adds about two million Americans per year.

Net international migration adds another 770,000 residents per year, according to Census estimates. About 43 percent of the immigrants are Hispanic, 30 percent are Asian, and 10 percent are Black.

The largest five states included 36 percent of all residents. California, with 31 million people (12 percent), Texas and, New York, 18 million each (seven percent each), Florida, 14 million (five percent), and Pennsylvania, 12 million (almost five percent).

According to the UCLA Business Forecasting Project, California's employment grew by almost two percent in 1994 to 12.2 million nonfarm employees, up from the 1993 low of 12 million. California's population, which had been growing by almost three percent per year in 1989-90, is now growing by only one percent per year--in 1994, net immigration to California is projected to be zero, the first time in recent memory that as many people left the state as entered.

Even though California's economy is turning up, 57 percent of Californians in a March 1995 poll believed that the state was on the "wrong track." A majority of those polled thought that California's economy would get better in two or three years, but one-third are not confident that they will have their current jobs in six months.

Data on job attachment between 1973 and 1993 indicate that a stable 20 percent of American workers aged 45 to 54 have worked for the same company for more than 20 years, and half of them have worked for the same employer for 10 or more years. This apparent stability of job attachment seems to fly in the face of stories of corporate cutbacks at companies such as IBM and Kodak that used to offer "lifetime employment." It may be that job attachment is declining fastest among the less-educated men whose real earnings are also declining, fueling the "angry white men" syndrome to which some attribute Republican political victories.

Moving company records for 1994 indicate that almost twice as many families were moved out of California as were moved in, 95,500 out, and 54,300 in. However, California continues to receive enough immigrants so that, even if twice as many residents leave California for Texas, Washington, Arizona, and Colorado, the state's population grows as immigrants replace departing Californians, and immigrants and resident Californians have babies.

Paul Schnitt, "California Exodus beginning to ebb," Sacramento Bee, March 30, 1995, D1.
UCLA BFP Forecast for the Nation and California, March 1995, Tel(310)825-1623; Census Bureau CB 95-39, March 1, 1995.