SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) — New census figures show people are returning to San Francisco for the first time since 2019.

“I think the pandemic has really changed a lot of people's lives. I'm glad they're coming back. It’s wonderful,” said Mark Palmer, a San Francisco resident.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, San Francisco's population increased by about 1,200 between July 2022 and 2023. The city's population rose from 807,774 to just under 809,000. That's an increase of 0.15%.

“I’m a little surprised at the number,” Linda Jensen said.

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MORE: California Dreaming: Moving to Texas

The recovery from a decline of over 50,000 people in 2021 is shown in the light blue line in the chart above.

“As a chef, a lot of my friends left,” said Danny Murcia, a San Francisco resident. “A lot of the restaurants we grew up in are a thing of the past.”

Statewide, California lost more than 75,000 people from 2022 to 2023 — a decline of 0.2%.

“But things are starting to change,” Murcia said. “I’m starting to get calls again asking if I know anyone who has openings in our industry again, which is huge for us.”

MORE: Census Bureau: Greater SF sees mass exodus during pandemic; more are thinking about leaving

New data from the U.S. Census Bureau shows that 7.6% of San Francisco metro area residents surveyed are considering moving to another city in the next year.

“We spent a lot of time in Tahoe. A lot of people went to Tahoe. They were unprepared for year-round living in Tahoe. I’m not surprised that people want to come back,” Jensen said.

The pandemic allowed people to work remotely and in significantly cheaper locations. But Eric McGee, policy director at the Public Policy Institute of California, said that is now changing.

“Now, in some cases, the staff is a little more cumbersome about people only showing up in person a few days a week, and I think that's attracting people because of the dynamic and the well-paying jobs, especially in the Bay Area, back to California. “Still here,” McGee said.

The Bay Area is also experiencing an upswing.

“The Bay Area in general, not just San Francisco, has seen a bit of a turnaround. We have some new dynamic industries like AI that are attracting people back to the state,” McGee said.

MORE: Bay Area exodus: Where is everyone going and why?

New data from the United States Postal Service shows people are moving from the Bay Area to less restrictive parts of the state amid the ongoing pandemic.

Kevin Ho, a San Francisco real estate agent with Vanguard Properties, said things have definitely improved.

“We have a lot of vendors who would have left town before. Now they're upgrading and staying in the city – and buying bigger and better homes,” Ho said. “We have customers who are relocating and moving back to the Bay Area. We had a couple who just bought an iconic property and are moving here from Miami.”

MORE: After passing affordable housing bond, how can SF build more homes in one of densest US cities?

How can San Francisco build more affordable homes after voters recently passed a bond? Officials also provide insights into the challenges.

Experts say San Francisco still has a long way to go to get back to where it was.

“San Francisco is not quite back yet, but it is in recovery mode,” McGhee said. “We just have to wait and see whether this trend can continue. Policy challenges remain, particularly with regard to building sufficient housing. But things are moving in the right direction again.”

Meanwhile, Ho said there were large crowds at the open house on Sunday. He said the listings would sell in less than a week.

“We see people crowding there who want to buy, who want to stay,” Ho said.

If you're using the ABC7 News app, click here to watch live

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San Francisco is seeing more people return to the city after losing tens of thousands of residents since 2020, according to a new estimate from the state of California.

The city's population grew by 4,925 people to 848,019 residents in the 12 months ended June 30, according to a report released Tuesday by the state Department of Finance. Populations also increased in nearby regions, including Silicon Valley, driven by the arrival of international and domestic migrants.

The population increase is welcome news for a city that has seen an exodus of residents and retailers in recent years, plunging San Francisco into a deepening budget crisis. The population decline has been driven by high housing costs and the rise of telecommuting, allowing tech workers to flee an urban center hit hard during the pandemic while earning Silicon Valley salaries.

HD Palmer, a spokesman for the Treasury Department, called the news a “devastating blow” to critics of San Francisco who saw the city entering a so-called doom loop of fleeing residents and declining tax revenues.

International migration has been hampered in recent years by restrictive federal immigration policies, he said, but authorities have begun approving the backlog of H-1B visas that built up during the pandemic, opening the door to skilled foreign workers open for relocation to the Bay Area, Palmer said.

While population gains in the San Francisco Bay Area provided a bright spot in the Golden State, California's total population fell again by 37,203 residents in 2023, marking the fourth consecutive year of losses. The state has seen a net decline of more than 430,000 people since 2020, resulting in the loss of a congressional seat in 2021.

Several factors exacerbated by the pandemic are contributing to the state's population decline, including a higher-than-average mortality rate, a declining birth rate, a decline in international migration and more Californians moving to other states.

Still, the state's population decline slowed in the last fiscal year. And despite four years of declines, California remains the country's most populous state, with about one in eight U.S. residents calling it home.

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• According to the 2020 Census, Black Americans comprise 5.7% of San Francisco’s population.
• Decades of targeted policies have affected the community’s population and the conditions of historic neighborhoods.
• The city’s reparations task force has advocated for financial incentives that would repair history and bring Black Americans back to San Francisco. 

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As the city of San Francisco battles to lure residents back into the city post-pandemic, many of its Black residents are considering leaving the state altogether.

Today, only 5.7% of the city’s population identifies as Black, compared to 13% in 1970. Of that community, predominantly located in neighborhoods including the Fillmore District and Bayview-Hunter Point, 58% say they are considering moving out of state, citing the high cost of housing and high taxes as major grievances. This figure is up to 14% greater than Asian and Latino respondents, according to a 2019 University of California-Berkeley poll. 

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Once lauded as the “Harlem of the West,” the Fillmore District was home to thousands of Black workers who arrived in the 1940s. It became home to some of the region’s hottest jazz clubs, hosting the likes of Ella Fitzgerald and John Coltrane. The political landscape served as a hotbed for the Black Panther Party and other notably progressive politics. 

Under the guise of “urban renewal” in the 1960s and 1970s, however, Black homeowners were pushed out when their property was seized for developing high-rises and office buildings. By 1990, the Black population decreased to 10.9% of the city’s population. By the 2010s, the growth of Silicon Valley and subsequent increase in cost of living left many Black residents, facing high taxes and the lowest household income, with fewer options in San Francisco. 

The recently developed San Francisco’s African American Reparations Advisory Committee’s task force is advocating for $5 million cash payments for Black residents who were wrongfully impacted by policies and displacement. While the source and feasibility of this form of reparations payment is still under debate, the future and potential return of Black San Francisco still remains in the balance. 

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Golden Gate Bridge at sunset in San Francisco Li Rui/Xinhua via Getty Images

San Francisco is seeing a trickle of people return to the city after losing tens of thousands of residents since 2020, according to a new estimate released by the state of California. 

The city’s population grew by 4,925 people to 848,019 residents during the 12 months ended on June 30, according to a report released Tuesday by the state Department of Finance. Nearby regions including Silicon Valley also saw boosts in their population, driven by the arrival of international and domestic migrants. 

The population gain is welcome news for a city that has seen an exodus of residents and retail businesses in recent years, plunging San Francisco into a worsening budget crisis. The population loss was driven by high housing costs and the rise of remote work, giving tech workers the ability to flee an urban center hit hard during the pandemic while still collecting Silicon Valley salaries.

H.D. Palmer, a spokesperson for the Department of Finance, called the news a “crushing blow” to critics of San Francisco who saw the city entering a so-called doom loop of fleeing residents and sinking tax revenue.

International migration had been hampered in recent years by restrictive federal immigration policy, but officials have begun approving the backlog of H-1B visas that piled up during the pandemic, opening the door for skilled foreign workers to move to the Bay Area, according to Palmer.

While population gains in the San Francisco Bay Area offered a bright spot in the Golden State, California’s overall population declined again in 2023 by 37,203 residents, marking the fourth consecutive year of losses. The state has seen a net drop of more than 430,000 people since 2020, leading to the loss of a congressional seat in 2021. 

Several factors exacerbated by the pandemic are contributing to the state’s population decline, including a higher-than-normal death rate, a falling birth rate, a drop in international migration and more Californians moving to other states.

Still, the state’s population’s rate of decline slowed during the lastest fiscal year. And despite four years of drops, California remains the nation’s most populous state, with roughly 1 in 8 US residents calling it home. 

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During the first two years of the pandemic, 30,000 residents hightailed it out of San Francisco.  Now people are moving back.

San Francisco had a net increase of 4,682 incoming residents from July 2022 to July this year,  both domestic and international migration, the San Francisco Standard reported, citing figures from the state Department of Finance 

The uptick over the past year marks the highest population growth from net migration among 58 counties across the state.

Net new migrants equals the number of people who moved in minus the number of people who moved out.  Given new births during the period, the population of San Francisco grew by 4,925 to 848,019 residents. In January 2020, before the pandemic, it had 889,783 residents.

The city’s 0.58 percent population growth ranked as one of the highest marks across a state generally characterized by population declines, according to the Standard.

San Francisco ranked third for the number of new residents behind Alameda and Santa Clara counties, which have larger populations and more births than San Francisco. 

The city saw a drop of 4,400 people, or 0.5 percent of its population, between July 2021 and July 2022, smaller than the drop of 3.7 percent the year before.

Los Angeles, with 9.8 million residents, saw its population fall by 0.15 percent, or 15,217 people, over the past year.

California, which saw its population grow until the dawn of the pandemic, lost 295,000 people in 2020 and 2021. Last year, the state lost another 37,200 residents.

While the state’s population is in decline, state officials noted the pace of population loss is slowing as pandemic shutdowns have stopped and foreign immigration has rebounded from levels prior to the pandemic.

— Dana Bartholomew

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SAN FRANCISCO (KPIX) — Scientists, researchers, and volunteers are working on an Olympian quest – to restore the Olympian oyster to once-historic levels at a coastal wetland along the Monterey Bay, an effort that may help to curb the impacts of the warming climate.

At the legendary Swan Oyster Depot in San Francisco, the line forms early. If you’re lucky to get a seat at the seafood counter, you’re in for a treat: the restaurant just got a fresh shipment of the only oyster native to the West Coast of North America.

The Olympia oyster, native to the Puget Sound area and named after Olympia, Washington, is as small as a silver dollar but big in flavor. They are described as slightly briny with a coppery finish.

“I grew up eating these oysters and I think they’re just fantastic,” exclaimed Swan co-owner Steve Sancimino

Olympias are not endangered, but their once-abundant numbers have dramatically declined, largely due to overharvesting and mining practices during California’s Gold Rush, as well as persistent problems of pollution and loss of habitat.

Scientists, researchers, and volunteers are working to restore the Olympias to their historic levels in the wild. At this point, the Olympia oysters are not able to reproduce at numbers that can be self-sustaining.

One Bay Area restoration site is located at one of California’s largest estuaries.

“We are here to bring back oysters to Elkhorn Slough where they have lived for millennia,” explained Dr. Kerstin Wasson, who heads up the pioneering restoration project at the slough and works for NOAA’s National Estuarine Research Reserve. “We’re doing it with optimism and hoping that if we can bring back a million oysters to Elkhorn Slough, they’ll be self-sustaining. And today is one step towards that goal.”

In the slough, because of agricultural runoff from the Salinas River, the restored oysters won’t be harvested. But their intended role is big and critical: to filter water, stabilize the shoreline, sequester carbon, and provide habitat for other creatures – all big benefits as the planet warms.

“It’s really important that we help to restore this population,” said Dr. Luke Gardner, who works for California Sea Grant as an aquaculture extension specialist. He also works for Moss Landing Marine Laboratories, which is administered by San Jose State University.

At the lab’s aquaculture hatchery, specialists “borrow” adult Olympias from the wild at Elkhorn Slough and bring them back to the hatchery to breed baby oysters that will be involved in the restoration effort.

“In a hatchery, we can control a lot of the environment and we can make sure those little babies make it through to being juveniles,” noted Gardner.

The baby oysters require tender loving care: micro-algae for food, the right temperatures, protection from predators, and plenty of fresh water.

“They’re very needy and very dirty so they are really fun to take care of, but they need a lot of attention,” said Moss Landing Marine Lab scientist Jacob Harris.

Harris told CBS News Bay Area that when the baby oysters are ready, they attach to hard surfaces, including large clam shells that are also collected from the slough. Gardner and Harris carefully gather the oyster-encrusted clam shells, put them in special mesh bags, and pack them in a cooler.

They also collected baby Olympias from their water-filled silos and put them in plastic tubs to be loaded into the van headed to Elkhorn Slough There, scientists and volunteers enthusiastically jumped into action to unpack the precious cargo.

California State University, Monterey Bay student Taylor Garcia is aware of the world’s warming change and says she wants to be part of the solution.

“There always has to be optimism when it comes to this line of work,” said Garcia. “I guess because without it, you really wouldn’t get anywhere.”

The work is unusual but makes a lot of sense. Each volunteer is tasked with counting each baby oyster stuck to a shell or floating in a small container of water. They then measure the largest one that they can spy on each shell. They then record their findings on an iPad and secure each clamshell to PVC pipes tagged with a unique identifying number.

Once all the oysters are counted, secured, and tagged – there were about 80,000 baby oysters on all the shells – the volunteers picked up the PVC pipes, and now clad in rubber boots, caravaned with their treasures down to the estuary. There, the volunteers formed a brigade, carefully passing the pipes down to the scientists, who planted them into the muddy goop and low tidal waters of Hester Marsh. The scientists will continue to monitor these sites and record what happens with each group of oysters.

“The oysters have been here for 7,000 years and on my watch, I don’t want to see them disappear from Elkhorn Slough,” said Wasson, as she lined up the pipes.

Back at Swan’s, patrons thought the effort was well worth it. If they can restore the oysters in the wild at Elkhorn Slough, perhaps they’ll see more of all kinds of oysters growing in the wild.

“I think it’s a great initiative. It benefits not only the environment but also folks who truly love oysters. So, I think it’s a win-win for everybody,” said customer Phirun Pheap.

It didn’t matter to Sancimino that these oysters were not intended to be harvested and eaten. He said that was not the point, and applauded the scientists and researchers involved.

“I’ll be honest with you, if what they’re trying to establish down in the slough works, that’ll be one step closer to reviving a native species and putting it where it belongs in this state,” declared Sancimino, as he offered fresh Olympias to his happy customers.

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BOSTON (State House News Service) – The population of Massachusetts shrunk by nearly 8,000 people between July 2021 and July 2022, a drop of about 0.1 percent, but the newest estimate released in fresh data from the U.S. Census Bureau puts the state’s population ahead of its revised 2020 Census level.

Boston Red Sox Opening Day at Fenway

The bureau’s “Vintage 2022 estimates of population and components of change” released Thursday estimated a total Massachusetts population of 6,981,974 as of July 1, 2022. That was a decrease of 7,716 people statewide from the estimate for July 1, 2021.

The new data puts numbers to some of the migration concerns that have fueled Gov. Maura Healey’s push for changes to the state’s short-term capital gains and estate taxes, and color the challenges that businesses of all types have been having as they try to hire people in Massachusetts.

“We can’t be the outlier that we are because too many people leave — 100,000 people. More people will leave this week, this month. So we need to do something,” Healey said this week when the Revenue Committee held a hearing on her tax package (H 42). On Wednesday, Housing and Economic Development Secretary Yvonne Hao said an average of 1,100 residents left Massachusetts per week last year.

The 2020 U.S. Census initially counted 7,029,917 people living in Massachusetts, but the bureau announced last May that it had actually overcounted by 2.24 percent and reduced its population count for the Bay State to 6,784,000 people. Compared to that revised figure, the July 2022 estimate released Thursday would represent an increase of almost 200,000 people. The latest estimate is based on the 2020 Census and more recent data on births, deaths and migration.

Massachusetts experienced 70,019 births and 63,716 deaths between July 1, 2021 and July 1, 2022 — a net “natural increase” of 6,303 people. Over the same time, Massachusetts experienced a net outflow of 57,292 people to other states in the U.S., the UMass Donahue Institute said, and a net inflow of 43,880 people from other countries — resulting in net negative total migration of 13,412 people.

Area economists affiliated with the MassBenchmarks journal reported Thursday that Massachusetts has a “declining labor force and shrinking working age population” and needs to focus on competitiveness issues in the areas of housing, transportation, and high costs relative to other states.

“With little or no labor force or working age population growth, the stateâ€s employers are having to draw on labor from elsewhere,” according to the latest MassBenchmarks bulletin. “Recent growth in the size of neighboring New Hampshire’s labor force (in contrast to the Massachusetts decline) may exemplify that Massachusetts is bringing in labor from other states, whether in-commuting or working remotely.”

The counties that saw the greatest population decline by number from July 2021 to July 2022 were Suffolk County (a loss of 5,384 people), Hampden County (a loss of 1,808 people) and Berkshire County (loss of 762 people). By percentage, the largest decline was in Duke County — Martha’s Vineyard lost 1.14 percent of its roughly 21,000-person population.

Norfolk County saw the largest increase in its population by number and percentage, gaining 839 people over the year, the Census said, a 0.12 percent increase. Worcester County was close behind with a pickup of 795 people, and Bristol County grew by 173 people.

None of Massachusetts’ 14 counties ranked in the top 10 nationwide for population growth or decline, either by total number or by percentage.

Whitman County, Washington, was the fastest-growing county between July 2021 and July 2022 (up 10.1 percent), with the remaining top 10 fastest-growing counties being in Texas (five of the top 10), Florida, Georgia and North Carolina.

“I don’t want to see people going to Texas or to — I mean, Austin’s cool, but whatever — or to Florida, you know, North Carolina. But this is the dynamic right now,” Healey said in early March when she pitched her tax plan to business leaders.

Lassen County, California, declined at the fastest rate (6 percent) and Los Angeles County, California, lost the greatest number of people (about 90,700), according to the new data.

The Census Bureau said that just more than half (52.5 percent) of the nation’s 3,144 counties grew between 2021 and 2022, down from 55.7 percent the year before. Meanwhile 47.1 percent of counties saw population declines and 0.3 percent saw no change.

“The migration and growth patterns for counties edged closer to pre-pandemic levels this year,” Christine Hartley, assistant division chief for estimates and projections in the Census Bureau’s population division, said. “Some urban counties, such as Dallas and San Francisco, saw domestic outmigration at a slower pace between 2021 and 2022, compared to the prior year. Meanwhile, many counties with large universities saw their populations fully rebound this year as students returned.”

[Michael P. Norton contributed reporting]

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SAN FRANCISCO — Some of the most high-profile urban areas in the U.S. gained population on Tuesday. But it’s not because of a sudden flood of moving trucks into Atlanta, New Orleans and San Francisco.

Rather, the U.S. Census Bureau corrected errors made in the population and housing counts of urban areas that were officially released in December, according to a Federal Register notice published Tuesday.

The Atlanta urban area had its population adjusted to 5.1 million residents from 4.9 million residents. An additional 100,853 residents living in more than 37,000 homes had been mistakenly assigned to the Gainesville, Georgia, urban area.

The population of the New Orleans urban area grew to 963,212 residents from 914,531. The additional 48,681 residents had been mistakenly assigned to the Laplace-Lutcher-Gramercy, Louisiana, urban area, which was supposed to be deleted following a merger with the New Orleans urban area.

The San Francisco-Oakland urban area’s population was corrected to 3.5 million residents from 3.2 million. The addition of nearly a quarter million residents, as well as more than 100,000 homes, came from the San Rafael-Novato urban area, which had been counted separately by accident when it actually should have been deleted and merged with the San Francisco-Oakland urban area.

After every once-a-decade census, the Census Bureau publishes a list of urban areas and their population and housing counts. The most recent one was released in December.

More from CBS News

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Census data reveals an unexpected new trend in San Francisco’s so-called “exodus” — a widening educational divide.

One of the biggest demographic shifts in the city since the pandemic began has been the mass departure of residents 25+ who haven’t attended college, per the Chronicle. Even as the city’s population has dropped overall, this sub-demographic is leaving at significantly higher rates.

In the city, since the beginning of the pandemic, the total number of people aged 25 or older with a high school degree or less dropped by 14%, according to the data. Specifically, it plunged from approximately 165,000 in 2019, to around 144,000 in 2021, then further to 142,000 in 2022 (note that census data wasn’t available in 2020 because of the pandemic).

Source: US Census

While SF’s population dropped overall in the same time frame — from 2019, the total population was around 875,000, and in 2022, it was only 834,000, representing about a 5% decrease — the non-college-educated proportion dropped far more than the rest of the population.

In pre-pandemic times, SF was reportedly seeing an increase in its non-college-educated population — as the Chronicle wrote, between 2018 and 2019, it rose by 5,500 people (or 3.5%) — so this represents a significant shift in San Francisco’s population dynamics.

In fact, the change serves as a counterpoint to the narrative that those moving away SF in the exodus were solely overeducated remote tech workers.

The Chronicle attributes the decline of the subpopulation to the pandemic-related shutdowns and the rising cost of living, which prompted both remote white-collar workers and service workers to leave the city for greener, cheaper pastures. Service workers especially have been feeling the squeeze since before COVID, with their numbers declining 32% since 2019 (compared to a 7% nationwide decline over the same time), as the Chronicle reported.

San Francisco’s post-pandemic recovery has obviously been slow, in fact, among the slowest of urban areas in the country, as we’ve previously reported. As of August 13, 2023, total spending by SF consumers is down by 3.9%, compared to January 2020, according to Track the Recovery.

Image via Unsplash/Bia Frenkel.

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