Florida’s Population Growth Is Larger Than You’ve Been Told

Florida’s Population Growth Is Larger Than You’ve Been Told

Bottom Line: We’ve had numerous estimates of what Florida’s population growth was last year, often coming from moving companies based on migration reports. While dissecting the Florida Department of Law Enforcement’s annual Uniform Crime Report yesterday I realized their population totals were the first finalized from an official source. While the state of Florida’s fiscal year runs from October thru September, the FDLE’s report provides official numbers for the calendar year. In the year of the pandemic here’s what actually happened. 

• Florida’s population change: +387,479

Remember how we were hearing that we were averaging 800-900 new Floridians per day? Try 1,061. The unofficial estimates weren’t just off. They way under told the real proliferation of Florida’s population in 2020. As for South Florida...

• Broward: +12,568 or 34 people per day
• Miami-Dade: +20,664 or 57 people per day
• Palm Beach County: +18,637 or 51 people per day.

Notably, while South Florida continues to grow at a significant pace, Palm Beach County is adding population at a much faster pace than more populous Broward, and nearly at the pace of Florida’s most populous county in Dade. Florida’s growth story generally is remarkable in the context of the pandemic where most Americans spent much of the year locked down and unable to move even if they wanted to. If the actuals from 2020 came in significantly above the estimates, it’s likely that in real-time Florida migration is higher than what we’ve been hearing as well. While many of us would like to #MakeAmericaFlorida...it’s evident many aren’t waiting and instead America’s coming to Florida.