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Youngstown’s percentage of population loss between the 2010 census and the latest estimate ranks 6th among larger cities
YOUNGSTOWN
When it comes to the highest percentage of population loss between the 2010 census and the latest estimate, Youngstown ranks sixth among all cities with at least 50,000 residents.
The city’s population has dropped from 66,982 in 2010 to 65,062 in a 2014 estimate, a loss of 1,920 residents, according to data recently released by the U.S. Census Bureau.
That’s a 2.87 percent decline.
Youngstown Mayor John A. McNally said he was “pleasantly surprised” the population loss in the city is not greater.
The city is averaging a loss of 480 residents a year so far this decade. Between 2000 and 2010, the city averaged a loss of 1,504 annually.
“Fortunately or unfortunately, 400 or so people lost a year isn’t that bad” for Youngstown, McNally said. “We’re not losing 1,000-plus a year. It’s smaller, and it’s a leveling off of population loss. Our goal is to get that number to a zero loss.”
McNally said that when he reads The Vindicator, “there are three pages of deaths and only a few births, so I’m amazed.”
Thomas Finnerty, associate director of Youngstown State University’s Center for Urban and Regional Studies, described the latest census estimate as: “The bleeding has slowed. We’re still bleeding, but not bleeding out.”
The city’s population will continue to drop, but, Finnerty said, “We’re plateauing. Four hundred is almost to the point where you’re not losing. We’re kind of evening out. The 2020 census will still have the city with a population over 60,000.”
However, Finnerty said the city is going to take a hit in the 2015 estimate.
That’s because Corrections Corp. of America, which operates the private Northeast Ohio Correctional Center, lost a contract to house about 1,400 federal inmates. That contract expires May 31. The U.S. Census Bureau counts prisoners as residents in the city in which they are being held.
Those inmates are undocumented immigrants convicted of felonies.
Many of them are Hispanic, which means the city’s Hispanic population is going to drop, Finnerty said.
The 2010 census listed 6,229 Hispanics in the city’s population. That’s 9.3 percent of Youngstown’s residents.
With the loss of the federal inmate contract, that could reduce the city’s Hispanic population to about 7.5 percent.
In years without census reports, the federal agency provides annual estimates using birth and death records and migration data.
Using that data has proved somewhat unreliable.
In 2012, the initial population estimate for Youngstown was 65,405. It’s since been updated to 66,113 – a difference of 708 people.
In 2013, the initial estimate for the city was 65,184. It’s been updated to 65,493 – adding 309 more people to the count.
Youngstown’s population peaked in 1950 when it was 168,330. With the 65,062 estimate for 2014, the city’s population has decreased by more than 61 percent since 1950.