photo by: Shutterstock

A welcome sign is pictured along a Kansas highway.

As Kansans enter the new year, we can do so knowing that our state is no longer a loser — although the margin for error is pretty slim.

After losing population last year, the latest numbers from the U.S. Census show Kansas gained population in 2023. But the growth amounted to only about 4,000 people, or a 0.1% gain, which was well below the national average, which was historically low itself.

Maybe that didn’t make you feel as good as you had hoped. There is some better news. Despite the fact that our Christmas Day naps now sometimes begin before we leave the dinner table, we are not as old as we might think. (But be safe out there. A man can drown in as little as an inch of gravy.)

The latest data shows Kansas is not among the states that are so old that they have more deaths than births. What the numbers do show is that Kansas is among the states that other U.S. residents aren’t frequently moving to.

So, let’s take a look at some data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s latest population estimates, which were only for the states. Data for cities and counties have not yet been released.

Kansas had a 2023 population of 2,940,546 people. That’s an increase of 3,830 people, or 0.1%. Here’s a look at population totals and growth rates for other states in the region.

• Arkansas: 3.06 million, up 21,328, up 0.7%.

• Colorado: 5.8 million, up 36,571, up 0.6%.

• Iowa: 3.2 million, up 7,311, up 0.2%.

• Missouri: 6.19 million, up 18,988, up 0.3%.

• Nebraska: 1.97 million, up 10,319, up 0.5%.

• North Dakota: 783,926, up 5,014, up 0.6%.

• Oklahoma: 4.05 million, up 34,553, up 0.9%.

• South Dakota: 919,318, up 9,449, up 1.0%.

The numbers show Kansas indeed ranked last in that group of Plains states both in terms of actual people added and also in terms of percentage growth rate. The Census Bureau, of course, doesn’t try to divine why that is the case, but state leaders probably should.

What Kansas can hang its hat on in 2023 is that it was one of 11 states that was in the losing column in 2022 but shifted to population gainers in 2023. Those other states were New Jersey, Ohio, Minnesota, Massachusetts, Maryland, Michigan, Rhode Island, New Mexico, Mississippi and Alaska.

In total, only eight states in 2023 lost population: California, Hawaii, Illinois, Louisiana, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia.

Kansas’ 0.1% growth rate was below the national growth rate of 0.5%, which the Census Bureau said was historically low but was above the pandemic low of 0.2% in 2021 and 0.4% in 2022. The pandemic, of course, had major implications on growth rates around the country, as the number of deaths in the U.S. spiked due to COVID, and fewer people were on the move, in general.

The latest numbers, though, show that Kansas has recovered all of its losses from the pandemic and now has a slightly greater population than it did in 2020. Here’s a look at population changes and growth rates since 2020 for states in our region.

• Arkansas: up 56,242, up 1.9%.

• Colorado: up 103,902, up 1.8%.

• Iowa: up 16,577, up 0.5%.

• Kansas: up 2,711, up 0.1%.

• Missouri: up 41,267, up 0.7%.

• Nebraska: up 16,414, up 0.8%.

• North Dakota: up 4,847, up 0.6%.

• Oklahoma: up 34,553, up 0.9%.

• South Dakota: up 32,650, up 3.7%.

Again, Kansas is last in that group both in terms of actual number of people and in its percentage growth rate. It is last in some notable ways too. For instance, the number of new residents in the frozen tundra of North Dakota was nearly 80% higher than the number of new residents Kansas was able to add. That is one of the least populated, coldest states in the country that is nearly doubling Kansas in population growth.

The numbers don’t say why that is, but the numbers do rule out one possibility. Kansas is not losing population because more people are dying than being born in the state. In 2023, births exceeded deaths in Kansas by about 4,500 people. Here’s a look at whether states in the region had more births than deaths or vice versa. A negative number means there were more deaths than births, while a positive number means there were more births than deaths.

• Arkansas: down 907.

• Colorado: up 17,399.

• Iowa: up 3,779.

• Kansas: up 4,439.

• Missouri: down 55.

• Nebraska: up 5,699.

• North Dakota: up 2,704.

• Oklahoma: up 2,567.

• South Dakota: up 2,813.

Kansas actually had the third best numbers in the group. There’s a perception that Kansas is an older-than-average state, but by one metric that is really not true. The Census Bureau calculated the percentage of each state’s population that is 18 years or older. Nationally, 78.3% of the U.S. population is 18 years or older. In Kansas, that percentage is 76.4%. What that means is Kansas has a greater percentage of residents younger than 18 than the country as a whole. In fact, there were only a handful of states that were younger, by that metric. States that had a smaller percentage of 18 and older residents than Kansas were Utah, 72.7%; Texas, 75.2%; Nebraska, 75.7%; South Dakota, 75.9%; Oklahoma, 76.2%; Idaho, 76.2%; Alaska, 76.1%.

This last set of numbers starts to get at the reason why Kansas is struggling to grow its population. The Census Bureau measures migration patterns. It measures the number of residents from outside the U.S. who move into the states. It also measures the number of U.S. residents who move from one state to another.

Kansas, like every state, saw new residents as the result of international migration, but it wasn’t much of a bump. Kansas had 3,932 new residents come from outside the U.S.. That’s not much compared with the nearly 130,000 in Texas or the 150,000 in California or the 178,000 in Florida. In total, international residents added 1.1 million to the U.S. population in 2023. Natural population growth — births exceeding deaths — added about 500,000 people.

While international migration hasn’t been a big factor for Kansas, getting people to move from one state to Kansas potentially could be. In 2023, though, such migration was a negative for the state. Kansas had about 4,500 more people move from the state than move into it. Here’s a look at the same set of numbers for other states in the region.

• Arkansas: up 18,106.

• Colorado: up 7,236.

• Iowa: down 3,603.

• Kansas: down 4,572.

• Missouri: up 11,171.

• Nebraska: down 834.

• North Dakota: down 9.

• Oklahoma: up 23,587.

• South Dakota: up 4,812.

Again, Kansas ranked last among that group, and this is the category that may concern state leaders the most because of what it says: People aren’t choosing Kansas. What has happened between Oklahoma and Kansas, for instance, that nearly 30,000 more people are moving or staying in Oklahoma than in Kansas in a single year? Figuring out answers to that question and other similar ones seems important to the Kansas economy.