As the 16th most populous state, Indiana in 2014 boasted 6.6 million residents. But that ranking may fall in the wake of slowing population growth, according to an analysis of new U.S. Census Bureau population estimates by the Indiana Business Research Center at Indiana University.
That growth has been uneven across Indiana, and could portend problems ahead, especially for counties that are losing people.
“Midsize cities and rural areas around Indiana have been seeing a slow population decline,” said demographer and economic analyst Matt Kinghorn of the research center. “We’re seeing it throughout large swaths of Indiana. In most cases, it’s related to the economy. There’s not enough jobs to attract young adults back to the community or keep people in place. Those could be some troubling trends in some areas of the state.”
Among Monroe and its five surrounding counties, only two — Monroe and Morgan counties — showed growth from 2013 to 2014. Brown, Greene, Lawrence and Owen counties lost population over that time period. Morgan County grew 0.4 percent, and while Monroe County’s growth of 0.9 percent was the largest in the six counties, it didn’t rank with the fastest-growing Indiana counties: Boone County (2.3 percent), Hamilton County (2.0 percent), Hendricks County (1.6 percent), Daviess County (1.3 percent) and Clark County (1.3 percent).
“In 2013, Indiana finally snapped a stretch of six consecutive years of declining population growth rates, and the hope was that we would keep the momentum going in 2014,” said Kinghorn in a news release. “However, it appears the state took a small step back last year,” he said. While Indiana’s population grew from 2013 to 2014, its rate of growth slowed by 0.1 percent from the 2012-13 rate. “But we believe that this slowdown will likely be temporary and that Indiana will slowly begin to see stronger population gains over the next few years.”
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Overall, Indiana’s population grew by roughly 26,140 residents in 2014, increasing by 0.4 percent, according to the analysis. Indiana added 33,100 residents in 2013. The state was ranked as the 29th fastest-growing state in 2014 and surpassed all neighboring states. Indiana’s population grew by 40,000 per year between 2000 and 2010. But in the four years of available data estimates since the 2010 Census, the state’s population has grown by roughly 28,000 per year, adding significantly fewer people year-to-year than the average number over the past decade.
Where the state’s population growth remains strongest is in the 11-county, Indianapolis-Carmel-Anderson metro area. In 2014, the area added more than 18,100 residents, accounting for nearly 70 percent of the state’s net growth, according to the research center. The Indy metro area’s 1.97 million population represents 30 percent of the state’s total and ranks as the nation’s 33rd-largest metro area.