Population Pulse | Issue 32 - Negative Population Growth

Population Pulse | Issue 32

NPG
June 4, 2026
Population Pulse Archive
0 Comments

The Population of Texas is Changing

The Texas Demographic Center, a research outfit under the umbrella of the Institute for Demographic and Socioeconomic Research at the University of Texas at San Antonio, recently held its annual conference. Their new findings reveal three major shifts in Texas’ demographic profile.

#1 – Population growth in Texas – like the rest of the country – is slowing down. This is almost entirely a result of immigration enforcement and deportation, either by government officials or by choice. As recently as 2023-2024, Texas was accepting an average of 972 new immigrants each day. Between 2024-2025, that number averaged about 459 new immigrants per day – less than half the number it was in the prior period.

Natural increase has remained fairly consistent in its total number, but it now makes up a larger percentage of the total growth. While population growth in Texas is slowing down, it is still growing by more than double (1.2%) the national rate of 0.5%.

#2 – Texans are getting older. The median age of Texans is projected to increase from its current 35.6 to a number between 43 and 44.2 by 2060. This is a more pronounced problem in rural areas, leading to challenges within the labor force.

The total fertility rate in Texas is now below replacement level. This will lead to even greater disparity within the various employment sectors, particularly in rural areas, in the coming decades.

#3 – Population is growing in very specific areas. While Texas may be incredibly large, 87% of its population lives east of the I-35 corridor, according to the findings of The Texas Demographic Center. Additionally, the suburban and exurban rings surrounding the four largest metro areas experience the most growth within the state, and TDC estimates that 67% to 74% of the entire Texas population will live in those four metro areas (Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston, San Antonio, and Austin) by 2060.

Coinciding with the information from The Texas Demographic Center, new data from the US Census Bureau shows that Fort Worth is now the nation’s 10^th largest city, passing Jacksonville, FL, in the rankings. Texas now holds four of the nation’s ten largest cities.

To read more about Texas, we encourage you to review the original article on Texas2036.org, NPG’s Texas State Profile, and NPG’s Forum paper Tomorrow’s Tumbleweeds: Will 21st Century Boomtowns Go Bust?

Please support our mission
with a monthly contribution to NPG.

Enrollment in NPG's President's Circle program enables your monthly gift to be processed with no effort on your part. Please click here to sign up.

This program is very beneficial to NPG as it helps secure a line of funding to support our normal educational programs, including our informative Forum papers and our thought-provoking advertisements.

We have many members enrolled in this program and we constantly hear how easy it is! Monthly contributions can be as low as $8 per month, although some contribute $50 or even $100 monthly! You can manage your participation online or with a simple phone call or email to NPG.

Please consider enrolling in this special program today! As a reward, we will forward to you an exclusive President's Circle lapel pin to help show your pride in NPG's efforts to slow, halt, and eventually reverse immigration-driven population growth!

Trump Administration Hires Large Pool of Immigration Judges

In its continued efforts to remove illegal aliens from the nation, the Trump administration recently hired more than 80 immigration judges to help clear the backlog of cases. Unfortunately, this new round of hires only replaces some of those who were relieved of their duties when Trump resumed office in January 2025. The total number of immigration judges is roughly the same now as it was when President Biden left office.

While President Trump has been very strong on illegal immigration, some of his efforts come under scrutiny and even widespread outrage. The appointment of new judges appears to be politically charged as well, with the President referring to them as “deportation judges.”

As the CBS News article states: “While they’re part of the executive branch, immigration judges are expected to be neutral, and not show bias towards noncitizens or the Immigration and Customs Enforcement lawyers seeking their deportation.”

“Greg Chen, senior director for government relations at the American Immigration Lawyers Association, accused the Trump administration of seeking to ‘compel’ immigration judges to ‘act as tools of enforcement, not impartial adjudicators.’”

Under the Biden administration, arriving at the border and claiming asylum became common practice, leading to a huge backlog in immigration court cases. Some hearings take years to be argued, leaving millions of illegal aliens in the nation with no clear plan to move forward.

Since January 2025, it is estimated that the Justice Department has cleared about 500,000 of the 4 million immigration cases it inherited, leaving approximately 3.5 million still pending.

To read the original article from CBS News, click here.

To review NPG’s position on illegal immigration, we encourage you to read our Proposed National Population Policy as well as various Forum papers within our library.

Young Adults Very Concerned About Climate Change

A new survey from Sacred Heart University reveals that nearly 70% of young adults are “somewhat” or “very” concerned about climate change. Using their words, they feel anxious, frustrated, and afraid.

According to a summary article from National Catholic Reporter, “Nearly two-thirds of respondents ranked addressing sustainability and social justice as important to them. More than 9-in-10 said it was important for colleges and universities to teach on both subjects, as well as develop skills in students to act on them.”

NPG’s interest in such findings is very succinctly summarized within the article, when author Brian Roewe states: “The survey was conducted more than a year into the second term of the Trump administration, which has aggressively cut federal spending on climate change and worked to weaken or eliminate many regulations aimed at limiting greenhouse gas emissions that fuel climate change and other pollutants that harm human life and ecosystems. At the same time, numerous companies have scaled back or walked away from past pledges to reduce their heat-trapping emissions.”

When the Trump administration began to dismantle many of the nation’s most beneficial environmental protection programs, NPG released a Forum paper to address our biggest concerns. We encourage you to review What Would the Lorax Do? The Dismantling of Environmental Protections Under Trump 2.0 as well as NPG’s 2025 Earth Day advertisement which appeared in the Washington Examiner and The Washington Times National Weekly.

NPG Scholarship Contests

Submissions to NPG’s scholarship contests were due on April 13, 2026. We are very happy to report that we received more than 1,375 entries!

A team of judges is now narrowing down the finalists and winners will be announced on NPG’s website on or before July 13, 2026. This year, NPG will award at least 18 students a total of $50,000 in scholarship funds.

Our contest is divided into two sections – undergraduate and graduate. Undergraduate students were asked to respond to the following prompt:

On July 4, 2026, America will turn 250 years old. Happy Birthday, America!

Our country's population is now more than 87 times larger than it was at the first official census in 1790, growing from 3.9 million at that time to over 342 million today – and every day we add more people.

Negative Population Growth, Inc., the nation’s premier organization exclusively devoted to the study of U.S. population size and growth, has identified several reasons why population growth negatively impacts the United States.

We want to know what you think!

In 400 - 500 words, identify three aspects of American life that are negatively affected by population growth. Explain why these factors would be easier to manage with fewer people. Use hard data to support your positions. At least three properly cited sources must be included in your essay, using books, magazines, academic journals, organizational websites, and news outlets. Do not use blogs or social media posts.

Graduate students answered the same question but expanded their submission to 500 – 750 words. They were also asked to answer an additional prompt: In your opinion, what is an ideal population size for the United States and why?

NPG’s scholarship program was first created to help us reach a younger audience of Americans with our message of population reduction. Since its inception in 2006, we have received more than 46,875 entries to one of our various scholarship contests. We are always very encouraged to see younger minds take an active interest in what we believe is the most pressing issue facing our nation – continued population growth and the resulting damage to our environment, economy, and quality of life.

Each year, NPG asks its members to help fund our scholarship program. Our most generous donors have contributed $1,000 or more to create an NPG scholarship in their name, or the name of a loved one. If you are interested in helping with this important educational program, please email Craig Lewis, NPG’s Executive Director, at npg@npg.org.