At approximately the midpoint of this month, the population of the United States will hit 300 million, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Seconds later, it will eclipse that mark.
The bureau calculates that a new birth adds to the population every 7 seconds, and that a death brings it down every 13 seconds. Each minute, on average, two more migrants arrive in the country than depart it. The net gain is six people per minute.
The U.S. population surpassed 100 million in 1915 and 200 million in 1968, according to historical estimates, which are available at http://www.census.gov/ipc/www/. In the past century, the only year-to-year decline in population occurred between July 1917 and July 1918, when the country was at war.
