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Among Wisconsin’s counties, the number losing population has increased since 2004, with 42 of the 72 dropping in 2012, compared to 13 in 2002. “[W]e’ve been hovering sort of in the more or less half gain, half loss situation since the Great Recession,” Egan-Robertson said.

Key facts

• Fewer people have been migrating within the United States since about 1990, probably because the internet helps people navigate labor markets and enables some to work remotely. In addition, an increasing number of jobs are no longer specific to one geographic region.
• Total movement of people between states occurs at all ages, and people tend to move a lot in their early adult years. However, since 2007, smaller percentages of each age group have been moving to different states.
• Going back to 1981, data show that migration in Wisconsin follows a long cyclical pattern, with positive net migration from 1989 through 2007. For 2014, the data show a net gain.
• Of Wisconsin’s 72 counties, fewer than 20 lost population prior to 2005. From 2009 to 2014, more than 30 counties lost population, except in 2011, when 27 had an annual loss.
• During 2002-07, before the Great Recession, 45 counties gained population; afterward, only 21 counties gained population during 2009-15, meaning the other 51 had negative domestic migration.
• Milwaukee County’s total population has been fairly stable over the last 35 years at about 950,000 people, which is about 16 percent of the state’s population. One out of every six Wisconsin residents lives in the county.
• The five-county area of Milwaukee, Washington, Ozaukee, Waukesha and Racine counties has about 1.75 million residents, or 30 percent of Wisconsin’s total population.
• Kenosha and Walworth counties are affected by Chicago’s metropolitan area, which with its 9 million residents means it has 65 percent more people than the entire state of Wisconsin.
• Based largely on commuting patterns, demographers consider Pierce and St. Croix counties to be part of the Minneapolis/St. Paul metropolitan area, which is about 3.3 million people. Polk County might be added to this categorization.
• Duluth, Minnesota, and the Wisconsin counties of Dane, Brown and Outagamie, and Eau Claire form the core of four small metropolitan areas with fewer than 1 million people each. Each has maintained its population in terms of net migration, but eight counties on their fringes — Calumet, Chippewa, Columbia, Douglas, Green, Iowa, Kewaunee and Oconto — saw their net migration fall from positive before the recession to negative following it.