This Is the State With the Highest Birth Rate

By Douglas A. McIntyre Published Jan 24, 8:30AM EST

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This Is the State With the Highest Birth Rate — © Liudmila_Fadzeyeva / Getty Images

After decades of robust growth, the population in the United States rose only 7.4% from 2010 to 2020 to 331,449,281. The figure barely rose in the Midwest but grew over 10% in the South. The news set off several alarm bells. What happens to the size of the American workforce as people age? Might it shrink? The size of the older population is growing quickly.

Another root cause of the slow growth is that Americans have fewer children than in decades past. The size of the U.S. household keeps on shrinking.

As it has been since 2007, the U.S. birth rate is well below what is referred to as “replacement-level fertility.” That is, the birth rate a country must maintain to keep population levels stable without immigration. This could prove to be a problem. Though it is impossible to predict the implications with any degree of certainty, an aging and shrinking population could slow economic growth, strain government funding and lead to worker shortages.

While birth rates are at historic lows nationwide, in some states, birth rates far exceed the national average of 10.8 births per 1,000 people. Using birth data over the one-year period ending on July 1, 2021, from the U.S. Census Bureau, 24/7 Tempo identified the state with the highest birth rate. Birth rates in the states ranged from as low as 7.9 to as high as 13.8 per 1,000.
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In all but two of the 15 states with the lowest birth rates, deaths outnumbered births from July 1, 2020, to July 1, 2021. Meanwhile, births outnumbered deaths in all but three of the 15 states with the highest birth rates. Births minus deaths, as well as migration (people moving in and out of a given state), are the factors that contribute to overall population change.

The state with the highest birth rate was Utah. Here are the details for the period:

Births: 13.8 per 1,000 residents (45,159 total)
Population change due to new births: +1.4%
Total population change: +1.7%
Total population, July 2021: 3,337,975

Methodology: To determine the state with the highest birth rate, 24/7 Wall St. reviewed data from the Census Bureau’s Population and Housing Unit Estimates Program. States were ranked based on the number of new births per 1,000 residents in the described period. Data on total population change and population change due to natural growth (new births minus deaths) were calculated using data from the same Census Bureau program.

Click here to see all the states with the highest birth rates.
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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.