Attracting and retaining people to live, work, raise a family, and retire underlies the economic vitality of any region. Population growth is both a cause--and a consequence--of economic growth. Patterns of population growth and change reflect differences among regions to attract and retain people both as producers and consumers in their economy.

The following graphs offer a broad overview of trends in the pattern of population growth and change of Merrimack County with comparisons to New Hampshire and the nation at large. This analysis features alternative approaches toward discussing, diagnosing and comparing Merrimack County vs. New Hampshire's population growth over 1969-2022. The data used are those compiled by the Regional Income and Product Divisions of the Bureau of Economic Analysis, U.S. Department of Commerce.

Figure 1 traces Merrimack County's annual population for the period 1969-2022 to illustrate population patterns over time. During this 54-year period, Merrimack County's population rose from 79,699 in 1969 to 156,020 in 2022, for a net gain of 76,321, or 95.76%.

NOTE: The county and state population totals reported by the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) are from the Bureau of Census midyear (July 1) estimates. These estimates may differ from those prepared independently in some states by various agencies and/or universities.

Figure 2 traces New Hampshire's annual population for the period 1969-2022 to illustrate population patterns over time. During this 54-year period, New Hampshire's population rose from 724,000 in 1969 to 1,395,231 in 2022, for a net gain of 671,231, or 92.71%.

NOTE: The county and state population totals reported by the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) are from the Bureau of Census midyear (July 1) estimates. These estimates may differ from those prepared independently in some states by various agencies and/or universities.

Figure 3 shows Merrimack County's population growth in a broader context by offering direct comparisons across time with New Hampshire, the United States. The growth indices shown here express each region's population in 1969 as a base figure of 100, and the populations in later years as a percentage of the 1969 base figure. This method allows for more direct comparison of differences in population growth between regions that may differ vastly in size.

Merrimack County's overall population growth was 95.76% over 1969-2022 outpaced New Hampshire's increase of 92.71%, and outpaced the United States' increase of 65.57%.

Another interesting and insightful way of comparing the population growth of Merrimack County is to compare its individual percentage contributions to New Hampshire's statewide population over time, as shown in Figure 4. A rising share means a region's population grew faster, or declined less, than New Hampshire's population, while a declining share shows it grew more slowly.

In 1969, Merrimack County's population totaled 11.01% of New Hampshire's population, while in 2022 it equated to 11.18% thereby yielding a +0.17% share-shift.

Figure 5 shows the short-run pattern of Merrimack County's population growth by tracking the year-to-year percent change over 1970-2022. The average annual percent change for the entire 53-year period is also illustrated on this chart to provide a benchmark for gauging periods of relative high--and relative low--growth against the backdrop of the long-term average.

On average, Merrimack County's population grew at an annual rate of 1.28% over 1970-2022. The county posted its highest growth in 1988 (4.56%) and posted its lowest growth in 2009 (-0.30%). In 2022, Merrimack County's population grew by 0.92%

Over the past five decades some counties have experienced extreme swings in growth, and often such swings have tended to coincide with the decades themselves. Figure 6 again depicts the annual percent change in Merrimack County's population since 1970, but this time they are overlayed with average growth rates for the decade of the 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, 2000s, 2010s, and 2020-2022.

During the 1970s, Merrimack County's annual population growth rate averaged 1.94%. It averaged 2.15% during the 1980s, 1.21% during the 1990s, 0.88% during the 2000s, 0.41% during the 2010s, 0.69% thus far this decade (2020-2022).

Figure 7 compares the decade average growth rates for Merrimack County noted in the previous graph with the corresponding decade averages for New Hampshire and the nation. As the chart reveals, Merrimack County's average annual population growth lagged New Hampshire's average throughout the 1970s (1.94% vs. 2.33%), topped New Hampshire's average throughout the 1980s (2.15% vs. 1.94%), outgained New Hampshire's average during the 1990s (1.21% vs. 1.02%), topped New Hampshire's average in the 2000s (0.88% vs. 0.75%), amounted to less than New Hampshire's average throughout the 2010s (0.41% vs. 0.42%), and topped New Hampshire's average over the 3 year period of the current decade, 2020-2022 (0.69% vs. 0.57%).

Finally, relative to nationwide population growth trends, Merrimack County topped the nation in the 1970s (1.94% vs. 1.10%), outpaced the nation over the 1980s (2.15% vs. 0.95%), lagged the nation in the 1990s (1.21% vs. 1.23%), fell below the nation in the 2000s (0.88% vs. 0.95%), fell under the nation in the 2010s (0.41% vs. 0.74%), and outgained the nation over 2020-2022 (0.69% vs. 0.31%).