Shifting U.S. and North Carolina Demography During COVID-19

U.S. Census Bureau population estimates covering roughly the first fifteen months of the COVID-19 pandemic are analyzed to broaden our understanding of how the coronavirus reshaped the geo-demographics of our nation and the state of North Carolina. Experiencing an absolute daily net influx of 253 newcomers, North Carolina was the fourth most attractive migration destination behind Florida, Texas, and Arizona during the first fifteen months of the pandemic, although amenity rich states in New England, the Deep South, and the Mountain West registered the greatest relative increases in net migration between 2019 (before the pandemic) and 2021 (middle of the crisis). In North Carolina and other migration magnet states, pandemic refugees drove up the cost of housing and other goods and services, creating an affordability crisis for long-term residents and raising a host of policy questions about future growth and prosperity given slowing total and foreign-born population growth, non-Hispanic white population decline, below replacement level fertility, deaths of despair, and other gale force demographic wind gusts that confront the nation and the state of North Carolina.