World Population hits 8 billion, with an increase of 75 million people

The world's population will stand at more than 8 billion on New Year's Day, having added more than 75 million people this year, according to figures released by the U.S. Census Bureau Thursday. The growth rate for the United States in the past year was 0.53 per cent, about half the worldwide figure. The US added 1.7 million people and will have a population on New Year's Day of 335.8 million people.

If the current pace continues through the end of the decade, the 2020s could be the slowest-growing decade in US history, yielding a growth rate of less than 4 per cent over the 10-year-period from 2020 to 2030, said William Frey, a demographer at The Brookings Institution.The slowest-growing decade currently was in the aftermath of the Great Depression in the 1930s, when the growth rate was 7.3 per cent.At the start of 2024, the United States is expected to experience one birth every nine seconds and one death every 9.5 seconds. However, immigration will keep the population from dropping.