Will 2015-2020 see an uptick in population growth?

According to population projections from the North Carolina Office of State Budget and Management, North Carolina’s population growth will be  steady over the decade. The state grew by just over half a million between 2010 and 2015 and is projected to add another half million residents between 2015 and 2020.

During the 1980s, North Carolina’s population growth was similarly even across the decade, but different growth patterns emerged over the next 20 years. In both the 1990s and 2000s, the second half of the decade saw much larger growth than the first half. It may be that a large influx of relatively young in-migrants in the first five years contributed to natural increase (more births than deaths) in the second five years, but this detail was not available.

Will 2015-2020 see an uptick in population growth like the prior two decades? Probably not. Current data and projections suggest that the next five years of growth will look more like the growth of the 1980s, with steady, sustained growth across the decade.