Net Migration Spurs Renewed Growth in Rural Areas of the United States

The U.S. rural (nonmetro) population is growing again after a decade of overall population loss, with growth of about a quarter percent from July 2020 through June 2022. This growth occurred because net in-migration (more people moving in than moving out) was larger than population decline from natural decrease (more deaths than births). The increase in remote work that followed the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic contributed to this major shift in migration. Rural net migration rates were negative from 2010 to 2016 and near zero from 2017 to 2020, then jumped to 0.47 percent in 2020–21. Urban (metro) areas experienced a mirror-image decline in net migration, from 0.17 to 0.06 percent between 2019–20 and 2020–21.