Florida, Under Ron DeSantis, Reaches Historic Milestone

December 23, 2022 4:05 pm

Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis has yet another reason to brag about the Sunshine State.

According to numbers that the U.S. Census Bureau released Thursday, Florida, after decades of rapid population increases, is now the nation’s fastest growing state.

“Florida’s population increased by 1.9 percent to 22,244,823 between 2021 and 2022, surpassing Idaho, the previous year’s fastest-growing state,” Census officials announced.

“Florida’s percentage gains since 1946 have been impressive: its 2022 population is just over 9 times its 1946 population of 2,440,000. For the third most-populous state to also be the fastest growing is notable because it requires significant population gains.”

Census officials said Florida’s population has increased consistently since the end of World War II. The state’s population grew 8 percent during the 1950s and even during times when the U.S. population increase had slowed.

“In the 2000s, the slowing trend continued with Florida averaging an annual growth of 1.7 percent. While this might seem slow compared to Florida’s growth in prior years, it is still a brisk pace. During the same period, the national growth hovered around 1.0 percent a year,” Census officials said.

“That trend has continued since 2010. Between 2010 and 2020, national growth dipped from 0.9 percent to 0.5 percent each year while Florida’s increases ranged from 1.0 percent to 2.0 percent. In 2022, Florida’s growth was nearing that previous decade high at 1.9 percent, not high compared to past gains but still the fastest among the states. Interestingly, Florida had the second-largest numeric gains behind Texas.”

That’s not the only good news for Florida this year.

In September, staff at the Washington, D.C.-based Heritage Foundation ranked states by their level of freedom in public education, factoring school choice, transparency, regulatory freedom, and spending.

Florida ranked No. 1.

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“Parents are rightly upset when schools indoctrinate their kids with woke racial and gender ideologies that do not reflect their values and contradict the ideals that make our republic great. School lockdowns contributed to greater mental health problems among students and forced masking disrupted learning,” Heritage said in an email announcing the report.

“Parents are fed up with these oppressive and divisive policies coupled with lower achievement. The [COVID-19] pandemic made it abundantly clear that families need more education options than our rigid district school systems offer or education elitists allow.”

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