Los Angeles County can lose about 1.4 million residents from 2023 until 2060, newly released data from California’s Department of Finance shows.
Currently, the county’s population for 2023 stands at 9.5 million, a decrease from the 10 million population figure the county had in 2020, according to the report.
Since 2020, when the dataset starts, L.A. County has steadily experienced a population decline. Researchers predict that by 2060 about 8.2 million people will call L.A. County home, which is still a hefty number.
However, while L.A. County could lose residents, other areas like Placer, Kern and Merced counties could experience a population increase.
Researchers also predict that other counties, like Orange, Sacramento and San Diego, could experience a population decrease but are expected to rebound.
Experts didn’t share the reasoning behind the continuous population decline in L.A. County, but in the past, high housing costs in the metro area have been one of the reasons residents have left.
On Wednesday, new data from Zillow showed that the median listing prices for homes in Los Angeles will soon cost more than $1 million.
As of June 30, the median home listing price was $975,333, a more than 30% increase from five years ago. Some California cities, such as San Francisco and San Jose, have already crossed the $1 million mark.
Statewide, researchers found that California’s population could decrease until 2030, but is expected to rebound by the following year.
Like L.A. County, Golden State residents have also decided to leave the state in favor of more affordable options like Texas.
A study from Storage Café found that 111,000 people, or 300 per day, decided to make the move from California to Texas in 2021, an 80% increase compared to 2012, according to data from the U.S. Census and IPUMS.
The average price of homes in California cost $737,900 while the average price is $302,333 in Texas, according to Zillow.
