US population hits 308.7 million but rise slows: Census

The 2010 US Census Bureau figures said it was the smallest growth in the US since the 1940 census, which pegged population during the decade of the Great Depression.
It was 13.2 per cent in the 1990s. The US population in 2000 was 281.4 million.

Census figures are politically sensitive in the US as this is used to determine the number of seats a State can have in the House of Representatives.It is also used to determine federal aid to a State.

"The Census forms the backbone for our political and economic systems for years to come," said Robert Groves, director of the Census Bureau, announcing the census result at the National Press Club.

Census results are favorable to the Republicans as the States where they dominate stand to gain more seats in the House of Representatives due to these latest figures.
The population count released by the US Census Bureau confirmed long-held assumptions that the balance of power in the country is titling away from Democratic strongholds in the Northeast and Midwest to warmer states in the Sunbelt, from Florida to Arizona, where Republicans hold sway, The Wall Street Journal said.

The biggest gain, as expected, was the state of Texas, which will have four new House seats.

The only other state netting more than one additional seat is Florida, which was awarded two new seats today; The Hill reported.

The biggest losers this round are the presidential battleground state of Ohio and heavily Democratic New York — both states will lose two seats.

While another eight states will lose one seat — Illinois, New Jersey, Iowa, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Louisiana, Missouri and Massachusetts; six states are gaining just a single seat — Arizona, Nevada, Georgia, South Carolina, Utah and Washington state.

The recent recession resulted in a slowing immigration rate, according to Carl Haub, a demographer with the Population Reference Bureau, a Washington-based non-profit.
"The population growth rate drop is largely because of a couple percentage point dip in immigration," he told the CNN.

"India's technicians and engineers who came here sent word back home that it's hard now. The IT industry is not the golden goose it's been in the past," Haub told the CNN.
Despite the slowdown, the nation's growth rate is much higher than most developed countries.

The populations of Japan and Germany, for example, are in decline, while France and the United Kingdom are growing at a rate of five percent, it said.