Eastern Washington vs. Washington | Population Trends over 1969-2022 (2024)

Introduction

Attracting and retaining people to live, work, raise a family, and retire underlies the economic vitality of any region. Population growth is both a cause--and a consequence--of economic growth. Patterns of population growth and change reflect differences among regions to attract and retain people both as producers and consumers in their economy.

The following graphs offer a broad overview of trends in the pattern of population growth and change of Eastern Washington with comparisons to Washington and the nation at large. This analysis features alternative approaches toward discussing, diagnosing and comparing Eastern Washington vs. Washington's population growth over 1969-2022. The data used are those compiled by the Regional Income and Product Divisions of the Bureau of Economic Analysis, U.S. Department of Commerce.

Figure 1.

Figure 1 tracks Eastern Washington's annual population for the period 1969-2022 to illustrate population patterns over time. During this 54-year period, Eastern Washington's population rose from 808,833 in 1969 to 1,696,000 in 2022, for a net gain of 887,167, or 109.68%.

NOTE: The county and state population totals reported by the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) are from the Bureau of Census midyear (July 1) estimates. These estimates may differ from those prepared independently in some states by various agencies and/or universities.

Figure 2.

Figure 2 traces Washington's annual population for the period 1969-2022 to illustrate population patterns over time. During this 54-year period, Washington's population rose from 3,343,000 in 1969 to 7,785,786 in 2022, for a net gain of 4,442,786, or 132.90%.

NOTE: The county and state population totals reported by the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) are from the Bureau of Census midyear (July 1) estimates. These estimates may differ from those prepared independently in some states by various agencies and/or universities.

Figure 3.

Figure 3 portrays Eastern Washington's population growth in a broader context by offering direct comparisons across time with Washington, the United States. The growth indices shown here express each region's population in 1969 as a base figure of 100, and the populations in later years as a percentage of the 1969 base figure. This method allows for more direct comparison of differences in population growth between regions that may differ vastly in size.

Eastern Washington's overall population growth was 109.68% over 1969-2022 trailed Washington's increase of 132.90%, and topped the United States' increase of 65.57%.

Figure 4.

Another interesting and insightful way of highlighting the population growth of Eastern Washington is to trace its individual percentage contributions to Washington's statewide population over time, as shown in Figure 4. A rising share means a region's population grew faster, or declined less, than Washington's population, while a declining share shows it grew more slowly.

In 1969, Eastern Washington's population comprised 24.19% of Washington's population, while in 2022 it equated to 21.78% thereby yielding a -2.41% share-shift.

Figure 5.

Figure 5 displays the short-run pattern of Eastern Washington's population growth by tracking the year-to-year percent change over 1970-2022. The average annual percent change for the entire 53-year period is also illustrated on this chart to provide a benchmark for gauging periods of relative high--and relative low--growth against the backdrop of the long-term average.

On average, Eastern Washington's population grew at an annual rate of 1.41% over 1970-2022. Eastern Washington posted its highest growth in 1970 (4.09%) and posted its lowest growth in 1986 (-0.23%). In 2022, Eastern Washington's population grew by 0.93%

Figure 6.

Over the past five decades some geographical regions have experienced extreme swings in growth, and often such swings have tended to coincide with the decades themselves. Figure 6 again illustrates the annual percent change in Eastern Washington's population since 1970, but this time they are displayed with average growth rates for the decade of the 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, 2000s, 2010s, and 2020-2022.

During the 1970s, Eastern Washington's annual population growth rate averaged 2.13%. It averaged 0.75% throughout the 1980s, 1.89% throughout the 1990s, 1.30% during the 2000s, 1.15% throughout the 2010s, 0.84% thus far this decade (2020-2022).

Figure 7.

Figure 7 compares the decade average growth rates for Eastern Washington noted in the previous graph with the corresponding decade averages for Washington and the nation. As the chart reveals, Eastern Washington's average annual population growth recorded above Washington's average throughout the 1970s (2.13% vs. 1.85%), recorded under Washington's average in the 1980s (0.75% vs. 1.70%), fell below Washington's average throughout the 1990s (1.89% vs. 2.10%), recorded under Washington's average throughout the 2000s (1.30% vs. 1.33%), recorded under Washington's average during the 2010s (1.15% vs. 1.37%), and exceeded Washington's average over the 3 year period of the current decade, 2020-2022 (0.84% vs. 0.64%).

Finally, relative to nationwide population growth trends, Eastern Washington exceeded the nation during the 1970s (2.13% vs. 1.10%), recorded underneath the nation over the 1980s (0.75% vs. 0.95%), outpaced the nation during the 1990s (1.89% vs. 1.23%), registered above the nation over the 2000s (1.30% vs. 0.95%), outperformed the nation during the 2010s (1.15% vs. 0.74%), and topped the nation over 2020-2022 (0.84% vs. 0.31%).