Census: Bay State Gained 100,000 Residents in 2 Years; USA Up 6.34 Million

There are 6 million more people in the United States since the the last census, and almost 100,000 more residents in the Bay State than in 2010.

The U.S. population is projected to increase to 315,091,138 on Jan. 1, the U.S. Census Bureau said Thursday.

The national increase represents a one-year increase of 2.2 million and a two-year jump of 6.34 million since the last census was taken in 2010. That's a 2% increase.

In Massachusetts, the 2012 census numbers puts the Bay State's population at 6.6 million, up by 98,515 individuals from April 2010.

It's an increase of 1.5 percent, and double the percentage increase of the rest the Northeast as a whole.

“We have some robust growth going on,” Massachusetts Secretary William Galvin told The Republican. “We seem to be the one place in the Northeast that has some sustained growth.”

Galvin told the newspaper that while the growth in Massachusetts’ population is encouraging, it’s probably not enough to win back a seat in Congress.

The census numbers also showed more residents move away from Massachusetts compared to the previous year, too.

“We’re not going to get back any congressional seats back any time soon,” Galvin said.  Massachusetts’ growth spurt may help the state stave off the loss of yet another seat in 2020.

Massachusetts remains the 14th most populous state in the nation.

Galvin told The Republican, a better job at counting college students living in dorms in Massachusetts may have helped contributed somewhat to the higher population number.

The national, increase in population is attributed more to immigration than births.

This year's uptick in the U.S. population growth rate came entirely from a jump in immigration, reported the Los Angeles Times.

Even as the number of births in the U.S. continued to edge lower, about 885,800 immigrants settled in the U.S. in the most recent year, which ended July 1. That was about 110,000 more than in the same period a year earlier, according to the census data.

"We are now attracting more immigrants, a sign that the [prospects for] jobs are not keeping them away as much as the last few years," said William Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution who analyzed the census data, to the Los Angeles Times.