The annual Census Bureau numbers released last week are just a snapshot of one moment, but they show blue states failing to reproduce themselves and their residents fleeing to red states, of which the strongest are growing not just because of blue-state refugees but also because they are successfully encouraging families to grow.
The numbers for the nation as a whole are troubling. Overall, the population grew by just 1.8 million, the lowest since the pandemic. While the cause of the slowdown is positive, President Donald Trump’s secure border and mass deportation regime, it does expose an underlying problem that has existed for years, which is a historically low birth rate.
Between July 2024 and July 2025, births outnumbered deaths by just over 500,000. As recently as 2017, the gap was over 1 million, and between 2000 and 2010, it was never below 1.5 million, often approaching 2 million.
State-level numbers, however, show that some communities are thriving better than others. Utah, for example, gained thousands of residents from other states while also enjoying the nation’s highest birth rate, births divided by current population, at 1.33%. Texas and South Carolina each added almost 70,000 people from other states while posting birth rates not quite as high as Utah’s, 1.23% and 1.21%, respectively, but still strong enough to grow the population.
Blue states such as California, Illinois, and New York fared far worse. California lost more than 200,000 residents to other states, Illinois lost 40,000, and New York lost 137,000. All three posted birth rates far below replacement — 1.01%, 0.98%, and 1.02%, respectively. To put the gap between Texas’s birth rate and those of the blue-state birth rates into perspective, the math says that if the entire nation had Texas’s birth rate between July 2024 and July 2025, the time frame of the census report, there would have been 600,000 more births, doubling natural population growth to more than 1 million.
The cause of the blue-state failure is no secret. Public sector unions, which control the Democratic Party in those states, demand high tax revenues and provide poor public services in return. The same government unions work closely with environmental and criminal justice activists to raise energy costs, strangling economic growth, and also drive up the cost of housing and make communities disordered and unsafe.
Red states, on the other hand, keep taxes lower and government services better and more efficient. Collective bargaining agreements don’t stop red states from firing unproductive government workers. Businesses are free to grow and expand without burdensome permitting procedures or restrictive labor rules. And communities are safe and orderly as drug and property crimes are punished.
Outside Utah, where high birth rates are also driven by religious factors, it is notable that other states with relatively high fertility, such as Texas, North Dakota, South Dakota, Oklahoma, and Wyoming, all feature strong energy sectors — oil, gas, mining, and related industries — that provide high-wage, stable employment opportunities disproportionately for men.
These industries support male labor force participation and earnings in construction and extraction, creating economic conditions that favor family formation. Research shows that access to good, steady, well-paid jobs for men is a strong predictor of higher marriage rates and fertility, because the jobs make men more “marriageable,” so couples can achieve the economic security that encourages them to have children and raise them well. The fastest-growing employment sectors in blue states are education and health services, which are dominated by women.
THE LEMON INDICTMENT IS WHAT EQUAL JUSTICE LOOKS LIKE
This blue-state model is failing not just demographically, but also in its core promise of prosperity and livability. Taxes are high, the government is expensive, and regulation is heavy. The most recent census data underscore this reality: persistent outward migration from California, New York, and Illinois to thriving red states such as Texas and South Carolina, coupled with birth rates below replacement level in blue strongholds versus stronger family formation in red ones. Blue-state leaders need to admit that their preferred policies are driving people away, failing to sustain families, which are the ultimate engine of economic vitality.
At a minimum, Democrats should stop imposing their failed approaches nationwide via federal overreach. Ideally, blue states would reflect honestly on the evidence, reform their politics to prioritize affordability, safety, efficient services, and economic conditions that encourage marriage and the raising of children. America’s future depends on learning from what works rather than doubling down on what manifestly fails.