Indiana and the Census

Being gone from Indiana I ought to probably keep my shut about politics, but what fun is that? Not that very much much has changed - the State's citizens are treated like cattle; the idea of they can get elsewhere if they don't like it here remains unchanged.

Hicks: Some early census results for Indiana and what they mean to economic forecasts 

The 2020 Census revealed unsurprising results. Indiana’s population grew last year by 23,943. This measure is "as of" a date in March, so it largely measures growth prior to the pandemic. What this count omits is the nearly 14,000 COVID deaths that are above the expected levels of mortality in the state.

That means nearly two-thirds of Indiana’s population growth in 2020 was erased by COVID, a population equivalent of a Chesterton, Auburn or Bedford. This should be a sobering piece of data. In a better world it might even give cause for the many critics of Gov. Holcomb’s pandemic restrictions to reconsider their objections.

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Many of the trends of the past decades continued in 2020. The greater Indianapolis region absorbed almost 75 percent of the state’s population growth. Most of the rest occurred in Fort Wayne. This continues the 21st century trend where the Indianapolis metropolitan area absorbs more than 100 percent of new jobs and close to 80 percent of new people statewide. Few places outside the large metropolitan regions are growing.

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Almost one in three Hoosiers live in the communities that aren’t growing. About 20 percent live in places that are growing faster than the national average, and the remaining half live in places that are in relative population decline. This reflects deeper, longer-term, structural problems in the state’s economy that suppresses population growth. Those places with significant population loss should be familiar to everyone.