Top 10 Most Populous U.S. States

The urban area has 2 million people.

i got ohio because i remembered how much people talk about it during the presidential elections. lol

except for Columbus, Cleveland, and Cincinnati

I think that's what they meant

Cleveland, Columbus, and Cincinnati are all arguably big cities. I think he was referring to the fact that everyone knows these cities, but forget there's a bunch of medium size cities around too (Toledo, Dayton, Akron, Youngstown, etc.) that make up a significant amount of the population that typical non-Ohioans do not think about.

The population has surpassed 10 million by now, can you update the quiz?

I remember in the 1970s Boeing was laying off workers in Seattle and a billboard was put up which said, "Will the last person leaving Seattle please turn out the lights." After a few years the city came back, but there is currently an exodus from California and New York that may not return in the near future.

Maybe. I just doubt that we'll see California get overtaken by Texas and/or Florida any time soon. Just because there is some population growth or loss in one state over a few years... doesn't mean that this will continue at the same rate in perpetuity. Especially given that most of this migration is, as I've pointed out a hundred times before, about jobs. If some companies open up in Austin or Atlanta and hire a bunch of people (or, inversely, if Boeing lays off a bunch of people in Seattle), you'll see a large spike in immigration or emigration. But those spikes are not sustainable. Even IF current growth rates continued exactly as they are... Texas would not overtake California until 2045. But... there is good reason to believe that they will not continue as they are. And it's not unreasonable to suspect that California will remain the most populous US state through 2050, 2080, or even beyond. And I'll very likely be dead before 2080.

My prediction: Texas will continue growing in population for a few years, closing the gap between it and CA, but Texas growth will plateau, and CA shrinkage will stop, and then reverse, within the next 10-15 years. By 2030 TX will be closer to overtaking CA than ever, but by 2050 I think the gap will be widening again and CA will not be overtaken by any state in the foreseeable future.

One caveat: if immigration policy significantly changes so that TX starts to see even more migration from Latin America, it could overtake CA.

And as for FL, given many factors including its remarkable failures in leadership, the fact that it is already overcrowded in parts and most of the people who live there seem to hate it, and, most importantly climate change, the state will start to see pretty rapid contraction in its economy as soon as this decade, accelerating through the 2030s, 2040s, and 2050s.. followed by demographic decline.. and by 2100 it won't even be in the top 10 anymore.

As you said, it's about jobs. Tesla is planning on bringing 5000 jobs to Austin, and Apple is bringing 5000 and expects to eventually bring up to 15,000 jobs to Austin. About 20 more companies either moved or expanded facilities in Texas in 2020, including Hewlett Packard and Oracle. Texas has no income tax, fewer regulations, and cheaper housing, which makes it a no-brainer for companies to move their headquarters there. People move there for the jobs and housing, companies move there for their bottom lines.

Another thing bad for Florida's future demography is that it is currently the state with the 5th-oldest median resident age, beaten out only by West Virginia and a handful of small states in New England.

California and Texas are both younger than the national average, with Texas edging out California but only slightly.