US Birth Rate plunges to record low in 2010

[Tender Branson]

Births:

4.007.000 (-129.000, -3.1%)

Deaths:

2.452.000 (+26.000, +1.1%)

Rates:

13.0 births per 1000 inhabitants
  7.9 deaths per 1000 inhabitants

National Release:

http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/dvs/provisional_tables/Provisional_Table01_2010Dec.pdf

State Release:

http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/dvs/provisional_tables/Provisional_Table02_2010Dec.pdf

[Tender Branson]

The previous record low was in 2002 with 13.9 births per 1000 people.

The good thing is that the death rate is also near a record low.

[Tender Branson]

I´ve done some calculations, and unsurprisingly the states with the highest unemployment had the biggest decline in births between 2007 and 2010:

AZ: -15.0%
MS: -13.6%
NV: -12.7%
GA: -11.1%
FL: -10.3%
CA: -10.2%
RI: -10.1%
NM: -10.0%
IL:  -8.9%
MI: -8.6%

The only states where births increased between 2007 and 2010 were:

AK: +3.7%
ND: +3.3%

NY remained almost unchanged, all other states had declines between 1% and 9%.

[Tender Branson]

I think AZ topping the list with the biggest decline in births has also to do with the fact that many Lations left the state because of the bad economy and because of the recent immigration law that was passed there.

AZ was also the state that had the biggest overestimate in the 2010 Census, with the Census result being considerably lower compared to the Mid-2009 population estimate.