A report released Thursday by Indiana University indicates that Fayette County is losing population at a higher rate than any other county in the state.
The Indiana Business Research Center at IU’s Kelley School of Business released its analysis Thursday of United States Census Bureau population statistics for 2014, which show that people are leaving Fayette County at a pace higher than any other Indiana county.
In fact, the analysis shows that the majority of counties in the Whitewater Valley are losing population.
Fayette County lost a total of 371 residents in 2014 – dropping from 23,468 from 23,839 – which placed it third in the state behind Lake County at 1,175 residents and Grant County at 475 residents for the total number of residents lost.
It was the fourth-consecutive year the county experienced population decline since the 2010 U.S. Census was taken, which listed 24,163 residents in Fayette County at that time.
The county’s pace at losing residents in 2014, though, is what put them atop the rankings.
The county saw a 1.6 percent decline in population in 2014, which lead the state and outpaced the second-highest rate in Fountain County of 1.2 percent.
Fayette County wasn’t alone however, either in the Whitewater Valley or statewide, in losing population, as it was one of 44 counties across Indiana which experienced population decline.
Union County, for instance, ranked ninth-highest in the state for its pace of population decline in 2014, losing residents at a rate of 0.9 percent. It lost a total of 63 residents in 2014, dropping its population from 7,309 to 7,246.
In Rush County, another area county to see population decline, its rate was 0.8 percent, ranking it 11th-highest in the state. Rush County saw 133 people leave the county in 2014, bringing its population from above 17,000 — 17,025 to be exact — to 16,892.
While the pace of population lost in Wayne County wasn’t as severe as other area counties — 0.5 percent — in 2014, the number of people it did lose, 307, ranked it fourth-highest in the state for the amount of population lost.
Henry County also lost population, but not anywhere near the levels of other counties, as its pace of population loss, 0.1 percent, and the number of residents lost, 71, placed it near the middle of the pack in the rankings.
The only counties to see population growth within the Whitewater Valley were Franklin and Ripley counties, as Franklin added a total of five residents in 2014, while Ripley welcomed 54 new people to its county in 2014.
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