Census estimates: Illinois lost more people than any other state 
 
 Census numbers show Illinois has lost more people than any other state. | U.S. Census Bureau photo 
 
 Illinois’ population is shrinking, losing more people than any other state within a 12-month period, according to U.S. Census Bureau estimates released Tuesday. 
 
 While eight states lost population between July 1, 2015, and July 1, 2016, Illinois lost the most, with 37,508, the numbers show. Much of that shift is due to Illinoisans moving to other states. 
 
 Census estimates are calculated by adding the population base and births, while subtracting the number of deaths and adding migration numbers. 
 
 Among the most striking estimates is that more than 114,000 Illinois residents moved to other states. That number has increased exponentially since 2010, when just 13,461 left the state. 
 
 Another 30,934 residents moved out of the country, the report found. But the numbers also take into account the number of people coming from abroad to live in Illinois, creating a net migration loss of 83,210 people. 
 
 The Census Bureau plans to release more detailed information about migration next year, which will include age groups. 
 
 Reasons could be as simple as moving for weather, or job opportunities. 
 
 Gov. Bruce Rauner’s administration on Tuesday pinned the decline on people leaving the state for more economic opportunities and a lower overall tax burden. Amid the budget stalemate, Rauner has pushed for reforms he says will grow the economy and bring businesses back to Illinois. 
 
 “In order to reverse this trend, we need structural reforms to create more jobs, lower property taxes, improve our schools, and enact term limits to fix our broken political system,” Rauner spokeswoman Catherine Kelly said in a statement. “The longer the majority party stalls and refuses to compromise, backing the status quo, trends like this will continue.” 
 
 A Simon Public Policy Institute poll of 1,000 registered voters in Illinois, taken in October, found 47 percent said they would like to move out of the state. That same poll, however, found nearly 80 percent of those polled said they were unlikely to move. Taxes, government and jobs were reasons for people wanting to move, according to the poll. 
 
 There are also national ramifications to the decline. If the state continues to shrink in population when the official census is taken in 2020, the state could lose a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives; the state has 18 House members. 
 
 But Matthew Notowidigdo, associate professor of economics at Northwestern University, said there are a number of potential reasons for migration patterns. He said the exodus doesn’t necessarily impact the state’s economy, but it warrants a study of why it’s happening. 
 
 “People leaving the state itself, just having fewer people around, is not necessarily bad for everyone else’s economic output,” Notowidigdo said. “I wouldn’t be worried in terms of our labor market outcomes but I would want to know what’s causing the people to leave. If it’s just weather, there’s not much we can do about it. If it’s something about what the state is doing in terms of its tax policy or in terms of its spending, or in terms of how it’s generally managing the economy — if that’s what’s causing people to move, then you sort of should want to deal with that problem.” 
 
 But Notowidigdo warned that people don’t tend to move primarily because of current government policies. 
 
 “The reason why people are moving between states tends to reflect longer-run demographic trends,” Notowidigdo said, adding many older people move to warmer climates. 
 
 Pennsylvania, New York and Connecticut — all with colder weather climates — also lost residents. ||||| For the third consecutive year, Illinois has lost more residents than any other state, losing 37,508 people in 2016, which puts its population at the lowest it has been in nearly a decade, according to U.S. census data released Tuesday. 
 
 Illinois is among just eight states to lose residents, putting its population at 12,801,539 people, its lowest since about 2009. Illinois' population first began to drop in 2014, when the state lost 11,961 people. That number more than doubled in 2015, with a loss of 28,497 people, and further multiplied in 2016. 
 
 "Illinois is a part of the country where, in general, during the recession, it held on to (people) who wanted to move to Sun Belt states. Now, it's losing them," said William Frey, a demographer with the Brookings Institution who analyzes census data. 
 
 "When you have a big state like Illinois, to lose population for three years in a row? That's cause for alarm," he added. 
 
 The plunge is mainly a result of the large number of residents leaving the state in the past year — about 114,144 in all — which couldn't be offset by new residents and births, according to census data measuring population from July 2015 to July 2016. The number of residents leaving the state is the largest in recent history, as data from 1990 show just 50,440 residents left Illinois and migrated to other states. 
 
 Illinois, however, had only the second-greatest decline rate in 2016, as even with the population drop it continues to be the fifth-most populous state. West Virginia had the greatest decline rate this year. 
 
 By most measures, Illinois' population will continue to sharply decline in the coming years as more residents call it quits on the state they call home. The Tribune last year surveyed dozens of former residents who had fled within the past five years, and all offered their own list of reasons for doing so. Common reasons included high taxes, the state budget stalemate, crime, the unemployment rate and the weather. Census data released last year suggested the root of the problem was the Chicago area, which in 2015 saw its first population decline since at least 1990, having lost 6,263 residents. 
 
 The state's population loss is part of a national trend of slow growth, as the U.S. this past year saw the lowest rate of growth of any year since 1936 and 1937, during the Great Depression era. Between 2015 and 2016, the nation grew at just 0.695 percent, lower than 0.7 percent between 2012 and 2013 and the lowest since 0.6 percent between 1936 and 1937, according to an analysis of the data. 
 
 The sluggish growth of the past year is in part due to the aging of the nation's population, experts say. The past year has seen a downturn in births and a rise in deaths, as the number of deaths nationally was higher than it has been since at least 2000, according to census data. And the median age of the population, which Frey said is around 37 years, is expected to rise, resulting in fewer people who are of child-bearing age, he said. 
 
 "In general, I think the (slowed growth) is a combination of lower births and higher deaths," he said. "The lower births can be chalked up to the recession and post-recession period, as young people and millennials are putting off having kids. The question is, 'Will they have them?' " 
 
 While Illinois has exhibited a long-standing pattern of losing residents to other states, traditionally births, in addition to migration from other countries, have balanced the loss. 
 
 More than any other city, Chicago has depended on Mexican immigrants to balance the sluggish growth of its native-born population, and during the 1990s, immigration accounted for most of Chicago's population growth. After 2007, however, Mexican-born populations began to fall across all the nation's major metropolitan areas. Unlike Chicago, most of those cities managed to make up for the loss with the growth of their native populations. 
 
 Now, Illinois residents are mostly leaving for Sun Belt states — those with the country's warmest climates, like Texas, Arizona and Florida. During the years after the economic recession of the mid-2000s, migration to those states paused but has started up again as states in the South and West have better job opportunities and more affordable housing. Texas, in fact, attracts the greatest number of Illinois residents, followed by Florida, Indiana, California and Arizona, according to 2013 Internal Revenue Service migration data. 
 
 Leading the exodus to warmer states is the black population, in search of more stable incomes, safe neighborhoods and prosperity. Between 2014 and 2015, more than 9,000 black residents left Cook County. 
 
 But it's not just the weather driving residents away. Job and business opportunities are stronger in neighboring states, sending more Illinois residents to other parts of the Midwest than vice versa, said Michael Lucci, vice president of policy at the right-leaning Illinois Policy Institute. Among them are younger, working-age adults, who make up some of the largest groups leaving the state, he said. 
 
 "That really speaks to economic concerns being at the heart of this. We've seen Illinois showing weak job creation in downstate communities, losses in manufacturing jobs and people wanting to opt out of a high tax environment," Lucci said. 
 
 While other Midwestern states also are losing population, Lucci said the "pattern is on steroids for Illinois." This past year, just 27,839 residents left Michigan, 12,395 residents left Wisconsin and about 12,135 left Indiana, according to census data. About 6,250 residents left Missouri while Iowa had 3,392 residents leave the state. 
 
 "I think what that says about Illinois is quite dire," he said, calling for transformational reform in state leadership. "Overwhelmingly, people are leaving to go anywhere other than Illinois." 
 
 meltagouri@chicagotribune.com 
 
 Twitter @marwaeltagouri
– Illinois can claim a dubious honor for the third year running: It's the state that's lost the most people for the year, the Chicago Tribune reports. US Census data published Tuesday revealed the Prairie State said goodbye to 37,508 people between July 1, 2015, and July 1, 2016, per the Chicago Sun-Times, dropping its population to 12,801,539—the lowest it's been since 2009 or so. The numbers lost by the state have increased exponentially in this most recent three-year span: In 2014, the loss was 11,961 people; in 2015, it was 28,497. And per a Simon Public Policy Institute poll in October of 1,000 registered Illinois voters, 47% of residents said they'd like to move away. "When you have a big state like Illinois … lose population for three years in a row? That's cause for alarm," a Brookings Institution demographer tells the Tribune. So what's to account for the drop? First, there's been an exodus out of state (more than 114,000 left in 2016), mostly to warmer climes like Florida, Texas, and Arizona. But it's not just the weather that's causing defections: Michael Lucci, a VP with the conservative Illinois Policy Institute, says there are also better job opportunities elsewhere. Combine that with the overall national trend of decreasing birth numbers and more deaths, as well as a decline in the number of immigrants to Illinois specifically (especially Chicago, which has traditionally welcomed Mexican immigrants), and the influx of newbies isn't keeping up with the losses. "To reverse this trend, we need structural reforms to create more jobs, lower property taxes, improve our schools, and enact term limits to fix our broken political system," a rep for Gov. Bruce Rauner tells the Sun-Times. (Other states where people want out.)