CHICAGO _ Illinois has lost more residents in 2016 than any other state, losing 37,508 people, which puts its population at the lowest it has been in at least a decade, according to U.S. census data released Tuesday.
This year marks the third consecutive year in which Illinois is among the few states to lose residents, putting its population at 12,801,539 people. Illinois had only the second-greatest decline rate in 2016, however, as even with the population drop it continues to be the fifth-most populous state. West Virginia had the greatest decline rate this year.
Illinois' population first began to drop in 2014, when the state lost 7,391 people. That number more than tripled in 2015, with a loss of 22,194 people, and further multiplied in 2016.
The plunge is mainly a result of the large number of residents leaving the state in the past year _ about 114,144 in all _ which couldn't be offset by new residents and births, according to census data measuring population from July 2015 to July 2016.
By almost every metric, Illinois' population will continue to sharply decline in the coming years as more residents call it quits on the state they call home. The Chicago Tribune last year surveyed dozens of former residents who had fled within the past five years, and all offered their own list of reasons for doing so. Common reasons included high taxes, the state budget stalemate, crime, the unemployment rate and the weather.
Census data released last year suggested the root of the problem was the Chicago area, which in 2015 saw its first population decline since at least 1990, having lost 6,263 residents.
