OCR Text |
Show 'U.S. Population Has Big Increase The rate of increase in population popula-tion in the United States continues contin-ues to dumb-found the experts. Census Bureau officials had estimated es-timated that the population would increase rapidly, but these official offic-ial estimates proved to be considerably con-siderably conservative. The population of this country in 1950 was 150,697,361, and, by July of 1954, a period of four years, the population had jumped ahead more than 11,000,000. Only seven of the forty-eight states showed population declines. They were Maine, Vermont, West Virginia, Vir-ginia, Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, Ar-kansas, and Oklahoma. Arkansas showed the largest percentage decrease de-crease with 5.8 per cent drop. Of the forty-one states which showed poulation increases, California's Cali-fornia's 18.1 percentage rise was especially significant and although al-though it was not the largest percentage per-centage increase registered, the addition of almost 2,000,000 people peo-ple as citizens of that state was the largest numerical increase noted by any one state. The population percentage increase in-crease in Nevada was 31 per cent, the highest percentage rise in the United States, although Alaska was up by 62 per cent, its population popu-lation now being estimated at well over 200,000. As a result of the increasing speed with which the United States is picking up new citizens, experts are now estimating that instead of it being the year 2,000, or 1990, before the U.S. population popula-tion reaches 225,000,000, the mark will be reached by 1975 twenty years hence. If gains made by such states as Michigan, Delaware, Maryland, Florida, Texas, and Utah, and others continue as well as the rapid increases registered by the states of Arizona, Nevada, and California, already mentioned there is no reason why the population popu-lation of the United States will not reach the 200,000,000 mark well before 1970. |