Earlier this month,
the Census Bureau released their population estimates for all US counties for 2023, and it gives some valuable insights into what is happening in Wisconsin.
I'll let UW-Madison's Applied Population lab give a couple of the highlights, and then I'll discuss more about it.
No surprise that Dane County continues to be the leader among state counties for population growth. It's been that way for most of the last 20 years, and as the graphic shows, Dane County has added more than twice the amount of people as the next closest county. Heck, outside of Dane County the REST OF THE STATE only added 3,400 people over the last 3 years.
But Dane County's growth in the 2020s is dwarfed by what Milwaukee County has lost in the same time period. The state's most-populous county lost more than 23,000 people in this time period, while no other Wisconsin county lost more than 1,662.
As you can guess, a big reason behind that is people moving out of Milwaukee, and into the adjacent WOW Counties. And another big beneficiary of this trend is St. Croix County, the western edge of which is part of the Twin Cities metro area.
The other area of the state that's seeing a large influx of people moving in during the 2020s are areas of Wisconsin with lots of lakes and increasing numbers of reitrees.
Put these two trends together, and it's no surprise who are the state's largest gainers when it comes to net migration from within America.
I did expect Dane County to be on this list, but they just fell short with a domestic migration gain of 1,156. However, Dane County also gained nearly 6,500 people from international migration, and Milwaukee County added nearly 7,700. Those two counties make up well more than half of the nearly 25,000 that net immigration has added to the state's population since 2020.
Dane and Milwaukee Counties are also on the right side of the third leg of population changes, which is the "natural change" of births vs deaths. Both Dane and Milwaukee have sizable gains in this category, and the counties that house Green Bay and (most of) Appleton have also added more than 1,000 people in the 2020s through more births than deaths.
But the state as a whole has had over 2,300 more deaths than births, with much of those losses over this 3-year period being chalked up to the thousands of excess deaths that happened during the pandemic years of 2020 and 2021. I'll also note that this has mitigated some of the gains through migration that some of Wisconsin's counties have seen, with Waukesha County suffering the largest number of losses.
Put these stats together, and it indicates some interesting changes in where people live in Wisconsin compared to 2020. Dane County keeps growing while Milwaukee County keeps losing, and there is a clear replacement of older people in the WOW Counties (where Ozaukee and Washington Counties also had more deaths than births) with others moving in from Milwaukee County and elsewhere. In the rest of Wisconsin, much of the population is stagnant except for places with lots of natural beauty and overall attractiveness for people to relocate to. Might be a good tip for what to invest in to get more people to want to come here, eh?
Demographics in this state still aren't great for organic, long-term growth, but the large-population counties of Dane and Milwaukee buck that trend with favorable demos, if they can hold on to the people that live there. In Milwaukee this has been a challenge with losses that need to be reversed, but Dane County has been able to grow in all areas, with success building upon success.
If you look these numbers
for all US states, it could be worse, as Michigan and Ohio still had more deaths than births in 2023, unlike Wisconsin. And the Badger State had the largest increase net domestic migation last year with 2023. Both are good signs for the future, and tells us that Wisconsin could be in a position to keep improving our demographics and population for the rest of the 2020s, if we push our advantages and keep our economy and quality of life in a strong place.
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