ST. LOUIS — Missouri continued to grow slowly, while Illinois keeps shedding residents, the U.S. Census Bureau reported in estimates Tuesday.
From July 1, 2022, to July 1, 2023, Missouri added 18,988 residents, or 0.3%, keeping its place as the 18th-biggest state, with nearly 6.2 million residents, the federal agency said. That ranked Missouri 29th for growth among U.S. states.
Illinois, by contrast, lost 32,826 residents in the past year, the Census Bureau said, or -0.3%. That ranked it 47th for growth; only Hawaii, Louisiana and New York lost a bigger percentage of their populations.
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Metro East accounts for about one of every four St. Louis-area residents, but between 2010 and 2020 lost 20,903 residents, the Census Bureau said previously. That decline was worse than the 17,716 residents lost to the city of St. Louis, which is smaller but often front and center in conversations involving regional decline.
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