The Northwoods has seen a lot of people move to the area in last year, many pushed by the pandemic and ability to work remotely.
The 2020 Census data released last week shows the Northwoods had a sizeable population move here over the last decade.
Wisconsin’s population grew by about 135,000 people over the last ten years, according to recent data released by the Census Bureau.
Overall, the population in the Northwoods has grown by more than 2,500 people in the last decade.
Forest, Langlade, Lincoln, and Price Counties all saw their populations drop slightly, but most of the drops were less than what we saw in the previous decade.
Counties like Oneida, Vilas, and Iron saw growth far outpaced the losses in those counties. Plus, many saw double or even triple growth than what they had in the previous decade.
UW Madison Demographer David Egan-Robertson said it’s an interesting trend seen in counties in Wisconsin that are driven by recreation and seen as a popular place to retire.
“When you do the analysis and are able to figure out the migration situation, it does seem pretty clear that in the past decade that a lot of people started migrating again to become permanent residents up north,” said Egan-Robertson.
Here’s a breakdown for counties in Northern Wisconsin for the current population size and the percent changed from 2010.
Forest County: 9,179 people, down 1.3%
Iron County: 6,137 people, up 3.7%
Langlade County: 19,491 people, down 2.4%
Lincoln County: 28,415 people, down 1.1%
Oneida County: 37,845 people, up 5.1%
Price County: 14,054 people, down 0.7%
Vilas County: 23,047 people, up 7.6%
Egan-Robertson said it’s similar to in-migration the Northwoods saw 40 years ago.
“In the 1980s and 1990s, a lot of counties up north gained a lot of population through migration period, particularly of older people. That kind of fell off during the 2000/2010 period, but that seems to be kind of back in this latest decade,” he said.
It’s important to note that the population growth is due in large part to people moving to the Northwoods.
It’s not from more people having children.
Egan-Robertson said the state as whole saw the population in the 0 to 17 age group drop by about 4%. But in rural areas like the Northwoods, it fell closer to 13%.
“If the patterns in the last decade continue to hold, you’re still going to have a lot of in-migration of retirees. You create kind of a broad spread, maybe more so than in metropolitan counties. More of a broad spread in the age spectrum in those counties up there,” said Egan-Robertson.
Overall, the number of births still out number that of deaths in the US, but those two figures are getting closer, which is why the rate of growth has slowed significantly.
Wisconsin’s population as a whole grew by 3.6%, less than half the national rate.
