Cook County’s population decreased again last year, but the amount of people leaving has slowed since 2020, new U.S. Census Bureau estimates show.
While Cook County remained the second-most populous county in the country, nearly 25,000 people left the area last year, causing the population to drop to about 5 million people, according to data released by the Census Bureau on Thursday.
Census Bureau estimates have been inaccurate in the past, however. In 2020, the census significantly undercounted Illinois’ population, leading to the wrong conclusion that the state lost residents over the previous 10 years. In reality, Illinois added over 250,000 people between 2010 and 2020. At the time, Gov. J.B. Pritzker said the news showed that “Illinois is now a state on the rise with a growing population.”
Pritzker announced in January that the bureau had approved the state’s request to have nearly 47,000 Illinoisans added to its future estimates, ensuring the state would get a proportional cut of federal funding provided to states every year.
If accurate, Cook County’s population loss bucks a larger trend in the Midwest and nationwide, the bureau noted. More U.S. counties experienced population gains than losses in 2023. Counties in the South grew faster and more Midwest counties had losses turn into gains for the first time since 2020, according to the bureau.
Following the pandemic, remote work and housing costs continue to be among the main reasons people are leaving, said Linda Waite, the director of the Population Research Center at the University of Chicago.
“A lot of domestic migration is because of people moving to where housing is cheaper, like Texas,” Waite said. “Texas has a very low bar for construction, [and] there’s very little regulations for new buildings.”
Harris County, Texas, the third largest U.S. county, grew by an estimated 53,000 people last year to 4.8 million — the biggest population gain in the country. The county, which contains Houston, is catching up to Cook County’s population, the census numbers show.
Los Angeles County remains the largest at 9.6 million people, but also experienced the biggest population decrease last year, dropping by an estimated 56,000, according to the bureau’s numbers. West Coast counties in general saw big population drops.
Since April 2020 at the start of the pandemic, Cook County has lost an estimated 188,000 residents, according to the census.
But the loss year-over-year did slow in 2023. That’s partly because of “a push and pull between where the jobs are and where housing is cheap,” Waite said.
The better jobs, for college-educated workers in particular, are still largely in major cities like Chicago. And as fewer employers allow for remote-only work, Waite said, the demand for remote jobs exceeds the supply.
The steady flow of new arrivals has also kept the population up, Waite said. Roughly 37,000 migrants have come to Chicago since 2022, according to city data.
Waite is hopeful that the exodus will continue to slow in the coming years.
“The city still is and should be a draw to young adults,” Waite said. “For young people from around Illinois, Indiana and Ohio who are finishing college, they want to go to a city with stuff to do and good jobs, and Chicago offers that.”
