California gained 348,000 residents in 2015, bringing its population to 39.3 million, the state Department of Finance’s demographers reported Monday.
The annual growth rate, just under 1 percent, follows a recent pattern and is less than half of what it was during the state’s most recent population boom in the 1980s. It indicates that California will hit 40 million in about three years.
Three-fourths of the state’s growth is so-called “natural increase” – the difference between births and deaths.
The state produces about a half-million babies each year – almost one baby per minute – and about 250,000 Californians die each year, but the 2-1 ratio is closing as births decline and deaths edge upward.
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