Profile America — Tuesday, December 31st. On this New Year’s Eve, some 317 million Americans of all ages are ready to greet the year 2014. A hundred years ago, the U.S. population was just over 97 million. Fifty years ago, it was just over 186 million. The 2010 Census counted just under 309 million people.
To show how the nation is growing, by this time tomorrow there will be 10,800 new babies on hand to welcome the new year, the first of whom will be reported in the media. These new arrivals will be joined by others — the 1,950 or so international migrants adding to our net population every day.
And there’s plenty to draw from — the population of the wider world outside the U.S. is reckoned around 6.8 billion people.
Sources: Historical Statistics of the United States: Colonial Times to 1970, p. 10 http://www.census.gov/prod/cen2010/briefs/c2010br-01.pdf
http://www.census.gov/popclock/
