photo by: AdobeStock

The Kansas State Capitol building is shown in Topeka.

Among the states in the middle of America, Kansas has been the slowest growing since the start of this decade. New Census data released on Tuesday confirmed that remains the case for the Sunflower State.

It also shows why.

No, it is not that there are more deaths in the state than births. Kansas is old, but not that old. Births outnumbered deaths by nearly 5,000 in 2025.

No, it is not that residents of other nations — immigrants — have no interest in moving to Kansas. Every state in the country saw a major decline in the number of immigrants in 2025, as new Trump administration policies began to take hold. Kansas saw the number of immigrants moving to the state drop by 52%, but that wasn’t extraordinary, considering that the nation as a whole saw a nearly 54% decline.

Rather, the issue that has made Kansas the slowest growing state in middle America this decade is some version of this conundrum: Not enough Kansas residents want to stay here, and not enough residents of other states want to move here.

The Census Bureau specifically measures those type of movements. It is called domestic migration, and it counts only residents who move from one state to another. It excludes immigrants who move to the state from another country. Between 2021 and 2024, the number of Kansans leaving the state has outnumbered the number of other U.S. residents moving to the state by nearly 5,500 people per year.

But Tuesday’s new numbers from the Census Bureau showed that changed in a big way in 2025. Instead of losing about 5,500 people via that pattern of migration, Kansas lost only 500 people. The numbers show this actually marked the third year in a row that Kansas has improved in the category of domestic migration. The 2025 showing, however, took that improvement to a new level.

In 2022, Kansas lost 7,185 people due to net migration. In 2023 it was a loss of 5,248. In 2024, it was a loss 4,775. In 2025, the loss shrank to 519 people.

If that trend continues, Kansas may well be on its way of shedding the label as the slowest growing state in middle America.

Indeed, the big turnaround in domestic migration was enough to push Kansas up in the rankings when considering only 2025. In 2025, Kansas’ population growth rate was more middle-of-the-pack when compared to other states in the region. Here’s a look at 2025 population estimates for each state, plus how much the population grew since 2024’s totals.

Nebraska: 2,018,006, up 0.6%

Oklahoma: 4,123,288, up 0.6%

Arkansas: 3,114,791, up 0.6%

Kansas: up 2,977,220, up 0.4%

Missouri: 6,270,541, up 0.4%

Colorado: 6,012,561, up 0.4%

Iowa: 3,238,387, up 0.2%

Kansas certainly was not at the top of the list among states of middle America, and it also fell below the nation as a whole. Population in the entire U.S. grew by 0.5%, so Kansas’ rate was a tick below average.

But the 2025 numbers look significantly better than this next batch of figures. They show the number of people added between April 1, 2020 and July 1, 2025, and what those figures amount to in terms of growth rates for each state.

Colorado: added 237,235 people, up 4.1%

Oklahoma: added 163,934 people, up 4.1%

Arkansas: added 103,261 people, up 3.4%

Missouri: added 115,628 people, up 1.9%

Nebraska: added 56,026 people, up 2.9%

Iowa: added 47,805 people, up 1.5%

Kansas: added 39,234 people, up 1.3%

No matter how you choose to order that list — either by actual number of people added or by percentage growth rate — Kansas ends up at the bottom of the ranking. Nationally, the country grew by 3.1% during that time period.

Of course, whether these numbers matter to you depends on your perspective about growth. Some certainly may contend that more people means more problems, but there’s also an argument that population growth that is too slow will put lots of downward pressure on important institutions like schools, hospitals and even the local grocery store that will struggle to remain open if the state doesn’t grow more robustly.

For those who hold the latter view, the improvement in the domestic migration numbers are a win — but only to a point. It is worth remembering that while Kansas saw an improvement in that measure, it is still among the 20 states that had more American residents move out of their home state than move into it. To truly call it a win, the state needs to figure out how to be among the 30 states that have more American resident moving into the state than moving out. With these latest numbers, Kansas leaders now know they are just 520 residents away from moving into that category. The new figures also show how much better Kansas did at improving this metric than other states in the region.

To be clear, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Missouri still have bragging rights overall. Out of the seven states in middle America, they were the three that had positive net domestic migration numbers. Everyone else in the group had more people leave than come in, when measuring net domestic migration of American residents

But if you are bragging about who did the best at improving in that category, there are two standouts, with Kansas at the top. Here’s a look at the list that shows how much a state’s domestic migration changed from 2024 to 2025.

Kansas: better by 89%

Nebraska: better by 76%

Missouri: better by 13.3%

Oklahoma: better by 7%

Arkansas: better by 4%

Iowa: worse by 127.2%

Colorado: worse by 342%

The top and the bottom of that list is pretty interesting. Colorado has long been considered hip and cool, but residents of the state took flight in a big way in 2025. In 2024, Colorado had about 5,000 more Americans choose to live in the state than chose to leave it. In 2025, however, the number of people choosing to leave the state outnumbered the people choosing to move to it by 12,100 people.

In contrast, Kansas and Nebraska — two states that haven’t historically had hip and cool reputations — posted the biggest turnarounds in the region. I don’t know exactly what that means, but perhaps a cultural shift — or maybe an economic or political one — is underway.

When it comes to the top states where people are choosing to stay or leave, the top five gainers are: Texas, South Carolina, Tennessee, Arizona and Georgia. The bottom five are: California, New York, Illinois, New Jersey, and Massachusetts.

If you are looking to avoid partisan debates, that list is probably not for you.

Lastly, let’s look at the immigration numbers from this report. That was the big national story created by this data release from the Census Bureau. As I noted earlier in the article, Kansas saw a big decline that would be very significant to the state’s growth pattern, if it continues. However, compared to other states, Kansas’ decline in immigration totals wasn’t anything out of the ordinary. Kansas saw its rate of immigration decline come in a little less than the nation as a whole, and it also was middle of the pack compared to other states in the region. Here’s a look at the figures showing how much immigration declined in 2025 compared to 2024 in each state.

Colorado: down 71.2%

Arkansas: down 58.7%

Oklahoma: down 55%

Iowa: down 53.5%

Kansas: down 52.1%

Nebraska: down 49.6%

Missouri: down 47.4%

National: down 53.8%