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By 2011, Florida may grow to No. 3

With the projected influx of new residents, retirees will outnumber schoolchildren by 2030, the Census Bureau says.

Florida will edge past New York state as the nation's third-largest in population in 2011, the Census Bureau said Thursday.

And its projections show a gain of 11-million residents in the state over the next 25 years from the current population of about 17.5-million.

The combined population growth in Florida and the No. 1 and No. 2 states, California and Texas, will constitute nearly 46 percent of the nation's growth between 2000 and 2030.

About 40 percent of the projected growth will come from people 65 and older. They will comprise 27.1 percent of Florida's population in 2030, up from 17.6 percent in 2000.

Florida will be one of 10 states where retirees will outnumber schoolchildren. In 2000, children outnumbered people 65 and older in the state by 840,000. But by 2030, there will be 2-million more older people than children younger than 18. Florida's youth will drop from 23 percent of the population to 20 percent.

Florida also will be among America's fastest-growing states, behind Nevada and Arizona. Florida's projected growth rate of 79.5 percent will be nearly three times higher than that of the nation as a whole from 2000 to 2030.

The projections show a continuing shift in the nation's population from the North and Midwest to the South and West. Nearly two-thirds of the country will live in the South and West by 2030, as the North and Midwest see their share of the population decline from 42 percent to 35 percent from 2000 to 2030.

[Last modified April 22, 2005, 00:43:11]