The individual populations of Lackawanna, Luzerne, Pike, Schuylkill and Wayne counties grew overall between 2020 and 2025 while those of Monroe, Susquehanna and Wyoming counties shrunk, the latest U.S. Census Bureau estimates show.

The bureau publishes annually national, state, county and other population estimates for each year since the most-recent decennial census, which was 2020. With each release, it revises and updates annual estimates from April 1, 2020, to July 1 of the designated year, which officials call the “vintage year,” the bureau’s methodology notes.

“Vintage 2025” population estimates released last week show mostly modest changes in Northeast Pennsylvania counties, the majority of which experienced gains.

Growth

The estimated population of Lackawanna County as of July 1, 2025, for example, was 216,502, up just slightly from the baseline estimate of 215,914 as of April 1, 2020. That’s an increase of about 0.3%, the smallest increase by percentage among local counties where the population grew.

Neighboring Luzerne County’s estimated population grew by about 2% over that time period, from 325,585 to 332,126. That’s an increase of 6,541, the largest increase by number of residents of any local county.

The largest local increase by percentage was in Pike County, where the estimated population grew by about 7.3%, from 58,560 as of April 1, 2020, to 62,808 as of this past July 1.

Schuylkill County’s population grew from an estimated 143,042 to 145,085 between those points in time, a roughly 1.4% increase, while Wayne County’s grew by about 1.1%, from a 2020 baseline estimate of 51,146 to 51,703 last year.

All five counties also experienced modest population growth between July 1, 2024, and July 1, 2025, though Lackawanna’s was nominal at just 84 residents. The other increases over that one-year period were: Wayne, 341; Pike, 544; Schuylkill, 676; and Luzerne, 1,228, the data shows.

Analysis

Teri Ooms, founding CEO of The Institute, a regional data analytics and research organization with offices in Scranton and Wilkes-Barre, is among those who’ve questioned for years the accuracy of the 2020 census. A lingering sense it left the region undercounted remains among those skeptics.

Subsequent updates and revisions, including the recently released estimates, likely corrected some of the potential accuracy issues, “but not entirely,” Ooms said. “I still think we’re undercounted.”

Nonetheless, Ooms said people moving into the region from other, generally more-expensive areas — New York City, Philadelphia, their suburbs and the Lehigh Valley, for example — is largely driving the trend of modest population growth reflected in the data.

“And while a lot of it has to do with costs, cost of living, some of it has to do with housing,” Ooms said. “That’s another reason why our housing market has been going crazy and will continue to do so until we’re able to start developing more residential properties and more infill development and more adaptive reuse.”

The flexibility that remote work affords people when deciding where to live also likely contributed to local population growth, she said. The beginning of the decade featured a pandemic-prompted explosion of remote and hybrid work opportunities, allowing for more movement among workers not tethered to a particular city or region by their jobs.

Ooms expects the growing-population trend to continue as Northeast Pennsylvania employers strive to meet workforce demands and address a relative shortage of skilled labor. She reiterated the need to bolster residential housing stock in local counties to accommodate that continued growth.

Declines

In Monroe, Susquehanna and Wyoming counties, where the estimated populations shrunk overall between 2020 and 2025, the declines were modest, too.

Monroe County’s population dropped from 168,292 as of April 1, 2020, to 167,179 as of July 1, 2025, a roughly 0.7% decline. But despite shrinking overall during that period, Monroe’s population increased modestly in recent years.

Its estimated population as of July 1, 2023, for example, was 166,762. That number increased to 166,818 as of July 1, 2024, and again to the 167,179 figure last year.

Over the broader period between 2020 and 2025, Wyoming County’s population dropped by about 1.1%, from 26,072 to 25,790, while Susquehanna’s dropped by 0.5%, from 38,431 to 38,237.

Susquehanna County’s estimated population increased nominally between July 2024 and July 2025, by about 0.1%. Wyoming County’s shrunk by about 0.3%, the estimates show.

Recent population estimates and other datasets are available online at census.gov.