The population of Aroostook County and other rural Maine counties continued declining in 2016, according to the latest estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau.
The County’s population declined by 1.15 percent between 2015 and 2016, from 68,752 to 67,959, according to Census estimates released Thursday.
Since 2010, the year of the last decennial census, Aroostook County’s population has declined by more than 5 percent, or more than 3,000 individuals — impacting local property taxes, schools, government services and the region’s economy.
According to the estimates, in 2016 Aroostook County had 639 births, 841 deaths, 599 individuals leaving, and 34 individuals moving here from other countries.
Only two of Maine’s 16 counties had more births than deaths last year, according to the estimates. Cumberland and Androscoggin counties were the only places in the state where more people were born than died.
The county-level census figures describe how demographers think the state gained 2,000 people overall last year.
But keep in mind that the further population estimates get from the last 10-year census, the fuzzier they become.
Glenn Mills, chief economist for the Maine Department of Labor’s Center for Workforce Research and Information, noted that in a recent blog post.
“Population estimates generally are less accurate the farther we get from the preceding decennial headcount,” Mills wrote. “We will not know for certain if there has been more population growth than estimated until the 2020 Census has been completed.”
So, with that in mind, the census bureau estimated that every county had more people enter from other countries than leave for other countries. Cumberland, York, Androscoggin and Penobscot counties had the most.
The trend for migrants to other counties or states was mixed (select different measures in the graphic above to view these changes for 2015-2016).
Penobscot, Androscoggin, Somerset and Aroostook counties lost population to domestic migration. Washington, Franklin and Knox counties had anemic domestic migration growth in the last year.
For the state’s northernmost counties, the latest estimates show the population losses piling on. Penobscot County again posted net losses, but at a lower level than 2015.
Kennebec, Androscoggin, Oxford and Lincoln counties showed slight net increases last year, contrasting with population losses in those places since 2010.
