But Dean Baker, the liberal economist and co-director of the Washington-based Center for Economic and Policy Research, said Monday he thinks the focus on population loss is somewhat misguided.

“I think it’s misdiagnosing the problem,” Baker told WPRI.com. “The problem is you have a bad economy, and because you have a bad economy people are leaving. But the problem is not that people are leaving; the problem is the bad economy.”

“If the people stayed there it wouldn’t make anything better – just imagine if you had the 25,000 people and they stayed there and they’re all unemployed,” he said. “Obviously they wouldn’t all be unemployed, but assume the bulk of them would be unemployed.”

In Baker’s view, a declining population isn’t a bad thing in and of itself. “There’s always an upside to it,” he said. Housing will be more affordable, infrastructure will be less strained, roads will be less congested, beaches will be less crowded. The real problem is why Rhode Island’s population is declining.

“There will be offsetting factors that would make it a positive, but again, in the context of people leaving because of a weak economy, it’s pretty hard for me to imagine that the net on that would be positive,” he said.

Here’s our 5:30 Q&A on Rhode Island’s population decline:

The state’s fertility rate fell to the lowest level in at least two decades last year as relatively few Rhode Island women of childbearing age brought home a newborn, according to a new National Center for Health Statistics study.

The study shows Rhode Islanders gave birth to 10,960 babies last year, which translates to 51.5 births for every 1,000 female residents between the ages of 15 and 44 – the lowest fertility rate of any state in the nation.

The fertility rate nationwide was 63.2 births but it was significantly lower throughout New England, with the region’s highest rate in Massachusetts, which had 54.4 births per 1,000 women 15 to 44. Women in Utah have the nation’s highest fertility rate: 83.6 births, about 32 more babies than women in Rhode Island.

Rhode Island’s fertility dropped fell sharply as the economy began to sour, from 55.8 births in 2007 to 51.9 births in 2010, along with the nation’s. As recently as 1990 the state’s fertility rate was 63.6 births; it’s fallen 19% since then, significantly more than the 11% decline nationally.

The new statistics also provide more evidence of Rhode Island’s changing demographics: 22% of the 10,960 babies born in the state were Hispanic last year, while 62% were non-Hispanic white. By comparison, the 2010 U.S. Census showed Rhode Island’s overall population was 81% non-Hispanic white and 12% Hispanic.

“Of course economic distress isn’t the only reason births decline – look at the huge decline following the baby boom that was driven by demographics,” analyst Bill McBride wrote. “But it is not surprising that the number of births slow or decline during tough economic times – and that appears to have happened once again.”

• Related: New England is old and getting older, the WSJ informs us (Oct. 25)

Perhaps that’s a little harsh. But a little-noticed vote taken last week by the U.S. House of Representatives would eliminate a crucial source of information about our state and its 1 million inhabitants.

House Republicans voted to cut off funding for what’s known as the American Community Survey, a yearly U.S. Census Bureau survey of 3 million Americans which “generates data that help determine how more than $400 billion in federal and state funds are distributed each year.”

Why does this matter to Rhode Island? “Without the ACS,” Washington City Paper’s Shani Hilton explains, ”states like North Dakota and Rhode Island – and non-states like our dear District [of Columbia] – would have to rely on the (less detailed) data that comes out every 10 years from the decennial U.S. Census.”

“It’s hard to comprehend why Republicans in Congress would want to defund a program that could promote long-term economic growth and help create jobs,” Congressman David Cicilline told WPRI.com. “But we’ve seen these tactics before. The latest House Republican attempt to defund the ACS demonstrates that they have no real plan to put our economy back on the right track and are instead relying on cheap political stunts.”

Rob Coupe, a spokesman for Cicilline’s Republican challenger Brendan Doherty, downplayed the issue’s importance.

“Brendan is hearing consistently from residents of the 1st Congressional District that they are concerned about Rhode Island’s economy and the need for job opportunities,” Couple told WPRI.com. “The Doherty for Congress campaign is focused on discussing Brendan’s leadership and initiatives to restore our economy and bring secure jobs to our state and Brendan is not focusing on issues such as the Community Survey at this time.”

While the vote to end the ACS was partisan, the outcry against the vote hasn’t been.

Anchor Rising’s Andrew Morse and the Ocean State Current’s Justin Katz both tweeted their dismay about the move. Michael Mandel explained why it’s bad for the economy. Josh Barro, no wild-eyed liberal, explained why it’s also bad for federalism. Even The Wall Street Journal editorial page thinks it’s a bad idea.

The Census reported 83.5% of Rhode Islanders had a high school diploma in 2010, which ranked ninth from the bottom among the 50 states. Wyoming was No. 1 at 92.3% and Massachusetts ranked 18th at 89.1%. California and Texas tied for last place at 80.7%.

The share of residents with a bachelor’s degree or higher was 30.2% in Rhode Island, which ranked 13th. Massachusetts was No. 1, with 39% of residents holding a bachelor’s or more. West Virginia was last at 17.5%.

Educational attainment is even lower across the broader Providence metropolitan area, which includes 1.6 million residents in Rhode Island and Bristol County, Mass.

The Census said 82.6% of Providence area residents were high school graduates in 2010, which was fifth from the bottom among the nation’s 50 most populous metropolitan areas. But 28.5% of the region’s residents had a bachelor’s degree or higher, which ranked 33rd. The Boston area ranked No. 4 and No. 5, respectively.

(map: U.S. Census Bureau)

So reports The New York Times (emphasis mine):

[F]or all the buzzy talk of knowledge industry synergy and urban appeal, census figures show that UBS’s return [to New York City from Stamford, Conn.] would be bucking the demographic trends rather than reflecting them and that the suburbs, however unloved by tastemakers and academics, remain where the growth is. …

Joel Kotkin, a writer who specializes in demographic issues, says that the 2010 census figures show that during the past decade just 8.6 percent of the population growth in metropolitan areas with more than a million people took place in city cores. The rest took place in the suburbs, which are home to more than 6 in 10 Americans.

The 8.6 percent is even lower than in the 1990s when the figure was 15.1 percent. … Of the 51 metropolitan areas with more than 1 million residents, only three — Boston, Providence, and Oklahoma City — saw their core cities grow faster than their suburbs.

Interesting. What’s up with that?

(h/t: Doug Lane)

If you want to understand why Rhode Island is likely to be reduced to one big congressional district after the 2020 Census, look no further than FiveThirtyEight blogger Nate Silver’s list of the most and least populous districts in the nation.

Congressman David Cicilline’s 1st District was the second-smallest in the country by population as of 2009, and Jim Langevin’s 2nd District was right behind at third-smallest, according to Silver. Only Louisiana’s 2nd District, which lost a huge number of residents after Hurricane Katrina, was smaller.

Rhode Island’s 1st District had 516,796 residents and Rhode Island’s 2nd had 536,413; the average district had about 700,000. Silver’s analysis used data from 2009, prior to the new U.S. Census.

“Rhode Island may finally have reached the point where it will be reduced from two seats to one; if it holds on now, it will be even more vulnerable in 2020,” he wrote, before the new Census showed Rhode Island had won a reprieve. “Democrats hold both seats now, and neither is typically competitive, so they would endure the loss.”

(map: U.S. Interior Department)

The U.S. Census Bureau reported yesterday (emphasis mine):

More than half of the growth in the total U.S. population between 2000 and 2010 was because of the increase in the Hispanic population. Between 2000 and 2010, the Hispanic population grew by 43 percent, rising from 35.3 million in 2000 to 50.5 million in 2010. The rise in the Hispanic population accounted for more than half of the 27.3 million increase in the total U.S. population. By 2010, Hispanics comprised 16 percent of the total U.S. population of 308.7 million.

That national number jumped out to me because it’s nearly identical to the one for Rhode Island – the Hispanic population grew 44% here between 2000 and 2010. So the increase here was very much in line with national trends. Hispanics’ share of the Rhode Island population is only 12%, though, compared with 16% nationally.

That’s quite a contrast with the trends among non-Hispanics. Here’s the Census Bureau again:

The non-Hispanic population grew relatively slower over the decade at about 5 percent. Within the non-Hispanic population, the number of people who reported their race as white alone grew even slower (1 percent). While the non-Hispanic white alone population increased numerically from 194.6 million to 196.8 million over the 10-year period, its proportion of the total population declined from 69 percent to 64 percent.

In Rhode Island, there was no growth at all in those two categories from 2000 to 2010 – the number of non-Hispanics and non-Hispanic whites both shrank, with each group declining nearly 4%. Non-Hispanics’ share of the total Rhode Island population fell from 91% to 88%, while non-Hispanic whites’ share dropped from 85% to 81%.

Notably, Michigan – the only state with slower population growth than Rhode Island from 2000 to 2010; it shrank – did not keep pace with national Hispanic population growth the way Rhode Island did. Michigan’s Hispanic population grew by just under 35%.

While Rhode Island narrowly escaped losing a U.S. House seat in the 2010 U.S. census, the outlook for 2020 is bleak.

That’s the word from Kimball Brace, the reapportionment expert who has been involved in drawing legislative and congressional districts in the state since the early 1980s. …

The competition for Rhode Island’s seat comes from Montana, which has a population of about 994,000, compared to our state’s 1,052,567, Brace says. But Montana’s population is growing much faster than Rhode Island’s, which doesn’t bode well for our state hanging on to both House seats.

If a year is a lifetime in politics, a decade is an eon. But the scenario outlined by Scott means that, theoretically, the 2022 election could see Rhode Island’s two sitting House members battling to represent the single at-large district left after the next round of national redistricting.

If that happened today it would mean Congressman Jim Langevin fighting Congressman David Cicilline, unless one of them stepped aside, which sometimes happens in these situations. And since they’re both Democrats, the real fight would be in the Democratic primary for the at-large seat, rather than in the November general election.

All hugely speculative, of course – though keep an eye on Massachusetts, which is about to go through exactly that process as it loses one of its 10 House seats thanks to the new Census. The Boston Herald’s Howie Carr suggested Wednesday that U.S. Rep. John Olver, D-Amherst, will be the odd man out in the Bay State.

If Langevin and Cicilline do hold onto their seats until 2022 – a big if, but hardly implausible – the former Providence mayor will need to spend the next decade building his popularity statewide in order to defeat Langevin for the at-large seat. Langevin’s favorable rating was 50% compared with Cicilline’s 34% in the Public Policy Polling survey I wrote about last month.

Losing one of our two House seats would also change the dynamic inside Rhode Island’s four-man congressional delegation. The state has been sending four people to Congress since 1932 – two senators and two House members – after losing its third U.S. House seat because of the 1930 Census.

Come 2022, Rhode Island’s remaining at-large congressman could be more like a third senator – though without all the power that an individual senator has under that body’s individualist rules.

One place where that dynamic has been in evidence is Delaware, which has had only one at-large House member for years – the state’s former Rep. Mike Castle was as well-known as a senator statewide, though that didn’t save him from defeat at the hands of Christine O’Donnell in last year’s Republican U.S. Senate primary.

(photo: City of Providence)

That’s the number of people living in the City of Providence as of each U.S. Census since 1790, the second year of George Washington’s presidency.

As you can see, Providence’s population peaked at 253,504 in 1940, then dropped nearly 40% over the next four decades as people flocked to the suburbs in the years after World War II.

The city stopped the bleeding at 156,804 in 1980 and then slowly recovered some of its losses over the 30 years since, with the population rising to 178,042 in 2010.

Thankfully, then, Providence is no Detroit. But that’s still 75,462 fewer people than were living here on the eve of the Second World War.

By another measure, though, the city has been losing ground since John Adams was president.

Rhode Island’s capital was the ninth-largest American city by population in 1800 – the equivalent of Dallas in today’s U.S. – and was 20th-largest as late as 1900, according to Census records.

But the postwar exodus pushed the city steadily down the list during the latter half of the 20th century, from No. 37 in 1940 to No. 43 in 1950; No. 56 in 1960; No. 71 in 1970; and No. 100 in 1980, the last year Providence made the rankings.

OK, now let’s do some crowd-sourcing. All the Census data about Rhode Island released today is available here – dig in and share what you find interesting in the comments section below.

Update: South Kingstown? More like South Boomtown! Census shows S.K., Cumberland grow most.

Earlier: Rhode Island population inched up since 2000 (Dec. 21)

Interesting, no? But the map doesn’t actually do justice to Rhode Island’s city-state-ness.

Turns out Rhode Island is the only state with its entire population in one metropolitan statistical area. New Jersey is a distant second, with only 73% of its population in an MSA, and Massachusetts is No. 9 with 63%. (Every resident of Washington, D.C., is in one MSA, too – but D.C. isn’t a state, so there.)

If you want more technical details on how Arbesman crunched the numbers to make the map, head over to his blog. Here’s how he described what he found:

[T]here’s not much of a pattern to this. For example, New York, Massachusetts and Rhode Island all grew out of single large population centers that were colonized early on, and this might appear to be a reason for being a city-state. However, Georgia does not have a similar history and is a city-state. On the other hand, Utah was also primarily colonized in a single city, yet is not a city-state.

More generally, these city-states don’t fit a single category in my mind: they are on both coasts as well as being landlocked, and encompass the non-contiguous states of Alaska and Hawaii.

The only state which saw its population grow more slowly than Rhode Island’s over the past 10 years was Michigan, which actually lost 0.6% of its residents from 2000 to 2010. (Puerto Rico’s population shrank 2.2%, as well.)

The other big news locally was that Massachusetts will indeed lose one of its 10 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives after the 2012 elections. Prepare for that scramble among the Bay State’s congressmen I previewed last month. Rhode Island has two seats and will keep them both.

Rhode Island’s population has roughly doubled over the last century while the nation’s has tripled. Here’s a chart showing the number of residents in the state from 1910 to 2010:

And here’s another chart showing the 10-year percentage change in the state’s population. The growth in the number of residents from 2000 to 2010 was the second-slowest in the last century; it was only slower in 1970-1980:

The U.S. population stood at a bit over 300 million on April 1 – 308,745,538 – up 9.7% from 281,421,908 in 2000, the Census Bureau said. A century ago, in 1910, the country had fewer than 100 million residents. The American population first topped 200 million in the 1970 Census.

This map from the Census Bureau shows which states gained the most residents over the past 10 years. Nevada was tops, with a 35% jump in its population. The only places that last population were Michigan and Puerto Rico:

Along with Massachusetts, the other states losing a U.S. House seat are Illinois, Iowa, Louisiana, Michigan, Missouri, New Jersey and Pennsylvania; losing two seats are New York and Ohio. Texas will gain four seats, Florida will gain two, and one seat each will go to Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, South Carolina, Utah and Washington. While not unexpected, that list will make Democrats cringe.

Rhode Island’s population of 1,055,247 includes 2,680 people who live overseas; the resident population here in the U.S. was 1,052,567.

Update: Rhode Island ranks as the 8th-smallest U.S. state by population at just over 1 million. The states with the fewest total residents are:

1. Wyoming (568,300 residents)
2. Vermont (630,337)
3. North Dakota (675,905)
4. Alaska (721,523)
5. South Dakota (819,761)
6. Delaware (900,877)
7. Montana (994,416)
8. Rhode Island (1,055,247)
9. New Hampshire (1,321,445)
10. Maine (1,333,074)
11. Hawaii (1,366,862)
12. Idaho (1,573,499)

As an example, here’s a screenshot I took of the NYT’s visualization for race and ethnicity in the Providence region. Each little dot represents 100 people. A green dot is for the white population; a blue dot is for black residents; yellow is for Hispanics, red for Asians and gray is for “other.”

The Census survey being used was taken between 2005 and 2009, and you can see the concentration of the local Hispanic community in South Providence and up in Central Falls:

Pretty neat. Check it out.

And thanks to the Nesi’s Notes reader who sent it along – it’s a big Internet out there, and I’m always looking for things like this to share.

Update: While we’re talking demographics, circle your calendars for next Tuesday, Dec. 21 – that’s the day when the Census Bureau will release the first trove of information from this year’s formal count, the one done every 10 years. (The information in the NYT’s map tool above comes from a sample survey that’s done more frequently, not the actual house-by-house count.) There will be charts!

After each census, politicians in most states engage in a baldly partisan ritual of adjusting district lines in hopes of sending more of their allies to Washington for elections to come. And as bad a time as they had at the national level, the Democrats suffered equal, if not more devastating, setbacks in state races. …

Republicans will control 25 legislatures, including Ohio, North Carolina, and Minnesota, boosting its power in statehouses by the most since 1928, the National Conference of State Legislatures says. The Republican State Leadership Committee, based in Alexandria, Virginia, calculates that its side enjoyed a net gain of 19 state legislative bodies in the course of taking away more than 500 state legislative seats from Democrats nationwide. The results “exceeded our expectations,” says [Ed] Gillespie, one of his party’s most prominent strategists.

Congressional seats will be reapportioned as a result of the recently completed census. States with shrinking populations will lose seats, and those with growing ones will gain. Eighteen states are projected to be affected, according to Election Data Services Inc., a consulting firm.

One of the states that Election Data Services expects to lose a congressman is Massachusetts, which has had 10 U.S. House seats since the 1990 Census. Here’s a map the firm released two months ago right here in Providence, where the National Conference of State Legislature held its National Redistricting Seminar:

That means the next round of congressional elections in 2012 will take place in new districts – which is sure to set off an intense fight among the state’s House delegation, as The Globe reported last year. But Democrats will be in firm control of the process there – even after making some gains, Beacon Hill Republicans will only control 32 of 160 House seats and just four of 40 Senate seats.

Rhode Island, on the other hand, doesn’t really have much to worry about when it comes to its U.S. House delegation. The state has had two congressional districts since the 1930 Census, which killed off the state’s short-lived 3rd Congressional District. But the state will still need to redraw its political map to reflect the new Census figures at all levels, and the General Assembly set aside $1.5 million in this year’s budget to pay for the effort.