State demographer: Wright County among fastest-growing in Minnesota; proposed census changes could affect funding

Susan Brower, Minnesota’s state demographer, told the Wright County Board that the county has been growing ‘‘at about 2.3% a year’’ since 2020 and added roughly 16,000 people between 2020 and 2025, making Wright County the fastest-growing county in the state by percentage change.

Brower said domestic migration—people moving from other parts of Minnesota and the U.S.—has been a major driver of the county’s growth. ‘‘In just 5 years between 2020 and 2025, [Wright County] added about 16,000 people since the last census,’’ she said, and noted growth is concentrated in cities such as Otsego and St. Michael. She linked the county’s faster growth to a relatively young, family-age population and a high owner-occupancy rate.

Brower also flagged a federal proposal to change how the decennial census counts residents and when it measures where people live. ‘‘Right now there's a proposal that some people, would be counted by the decennial census... people with other types of, work visas would not be counted,’’ she said, adding the proposal would also change the reference period away from April 1. Brower warned that such changes, if adopted without extensive testing, could produce decennial counts that differ materially from past censuses and have downstream effects on federal and state funding tied to census totals.

Board members asked follow-up questions about household size, median age and the likely origins of domestic migrants; Brower offered to supply county-level household-size and median-age figures after the meeting. "I will follow-up with that additional data," she said.