San Antonio’s figures also indicate that more people are relying on public sources of income, such as Medicaid and food stamps, to make ends meet. “That’s probably because of lower employment stability,” said State Demographer and UTSA Professor Lloyd Potter.

Dr. Helen You, Senior Demographer at the Texas Demographic Center, talks with the Texas Standard about the demographics of the Asian population in Texas

Lloyd Potter, the Texas state demographer, says the new Census Bureau data offers “a first look at the influence of the pandemic on local population dynamics.” While the data doesn’t reflect precisely how the population of Texas cities has shifted — namely births minus deaths and move-ins minus moveouts — “we do know that both Dallas and Harris counties experienced net out-migration from 2020 to 2021, and suburban ring counties grew dramatically from positive domestic migration,” Potter tells CultureMap.

Texas State Demographer Lloyd Potter says it has much to do with employment opportunities drying up. And with fewer job opportunities, young people tend to leave small, rural towns after they graduate high school.

“If they want to go to post-secondary education or they want to work in a job that’s, you know, potentially higher paying, they’re going to have to move to a more urbanized area,” Potter said.

One trend that Dr. Potter said Hill County is experiencing is more deaths than births, which is indicative of an aging population. “There are relatively few people in their childbearing years, and those people who are in their childbearing years are not having an average of 2.1 children,” Dr. Potter said.

Texas State Demographer Lloyd Potter spoke with Texas Standard about the trends in population growth and decline since the pandemic. Potter says this new data is the first to show possible population shifts from the pandemic. It reveals counties that had experienced drops in population and are now seeing population growth. Potter expects Texas to significantly ramp up efforts to improve infrastructure to meet the demands of population growth.

Population growth, which saw nearly 16,000 people move to the City of Temple in ten years according to the latest Census, is at the forefront of the conversation this year. Dr. Lloyd Potter, the State of Texas Demographer will discuss the population growth in Central Texas as the keynote speaker.

"The cost of living in San Antonio is lower, but then again income is lower as well, so there's kind of an affordability issue," says Professor Lloyd Potter, who teaches demography at UTSA.

Potter says San Antonio's heavily Hispanic demographic makeup is what sets it apart from other Texas cities and explains why median income is lower here.

State demographer Lloyd Potter said there’s no simple or singular answer for why San Antonio lags when it comes to income.

Compared with Dallas, Fort Worth and Houston, “San Antonio is kind of an anomaly … in as much as we’re like 64 percent Hispanic,” Potter said. “No other city comes up to that level in terms of the percent of the population that’s Latino.

“The Hispanic population tends to be at the lower end of the educational attainment spectrum compared to other race and ethnic groups. So given the fact that a very significant portion of our population is Latino — and income and education are very strongly associated with each other — that’s been kind of a factor.”