Second in a series.
On a national level, the 1980s had plenty of positives after a bumpy early start. In Iowa, though, like the rest of the Farm Belt, those bumpy years were part of a precipitous fall that, arguably, much of the state hasn’t been able to completely pull out of.
Here, the numbers skim the surface of the story. Viewed from an abstract level, the yearly census projections show nearly nothing but pain. (Remember, officially these were fiscal year estimates, shown here by percentage increase and decrease.)
(Intentionally scaled too small to read, to draw attention to the sea of red. Rightmost column is decade overall. The full-size version is here.)
Statistics that tell the story:
- In the 1980 census, Iowa had a nearly 200,000-person lead over Arizona. In 27 months, it evaporated. In the 1982 estimates, Iowa had lost around 25,000, while an additional 173,000 had poured into Arizona. For the Grand Canyon State there was no looking back.
- Of 990 individual data points — 99 counties, 10 years — projections were positive only 194 times. Two were flat.
- Those 990 data points averaged a loss 0f 0.87% a year.
- Only 26 times were counties estimated to have growth over 1%, and nine of those were Johnson County. In contrast, 25 counties lost more than 1% of population in 1988 alone.
- Over the decade, 7 counties lost more than 15% of their population, 41 lost 10% to 15%, 24 lost 5% to 10%, and 21 lost 0% to 5%. Seven — Dallas, Henry, Marion, Story, Warren, Polk, and Johnson — made it to 1990 with more people than in 1980.
- Those seven are in order of percentage increase, BTW. Dallas County has never had a down year after 1987, Warren never after 1985, Polk never after 1982, and Story once after 1990.
- Johnson County not only has never had a yearly population decrease in the entire 1980-2017 span, it’s only failed to grow by 1% once (1996, 0.83%).
- Three of the seven counties that lost more than 15% in the 1980s — Calhoun, Kossuth, and Pocahontas — have never had a positive year from 1980 to 2017, and that’s only because I’m not looking farther back. I did a deeper study on Kossuth County in 2013.