In the past year, the global population increased by 75 million individuals, bringing the total to over 8 billion people on New Year’s Day, as reported by the U.S. Census Bureau on Thursday. The worldwide growth rate for the year was slightly below 1%. As of the beginning of 2024, the Census Bureau projects an average of 4.3 births and two deaths occurring every second globally.
The growth rate for the United States in the same period was 0.53%, approximately half of the global rate. The U.S. saw an addition of 1.7 million people, resulting in a New Year’s Day population of 335.8 million. According to William Frey, a demographer at The Brookings Institution, if the current growth pace persists, the 2020s may become the slowest-growing decade in U.S. history, with a growth rate of less than 4% over the 10-year span from 2020 to 2030.
