According to estimates, Florida is slated to become the third most populated state in the nation sometime in the next few years. Though, one of our senators seems to think it's already happened.
"My state of Florida is now the third-largest state," Sen. Bill Nelson said last week during Senate Armed Services committee hearing about proposed cuts to the National Guard. "We have surpassed New York in population. But New York and Florida also have in common the threat of hurricanes."
The comments came as Nelson worried about cuts to the Guard and how it could affect Floridians after a hurricane.
However, Nelson probably jumped the gun when it came to boasting about Florida's population rank.
Politifact points out that that according to the latest Census Bureau estimates released in December, New York has 19,651,127 resident while Florida has population of 19,552,860. That's still a margin of a little less than 100,000 people. The next official census estimates won't be released until next December.
Florida is widely expected to soon overtake New York. Florida's population grew 4 percent from April 1, 2010, to July 1, 2013. New York meanwhile only saw growth of 1.4 percent.
When exactly that moment will happen though no one is quite sure, and it won't be even somewhat official until the Census Bureau weighs in. Though some do theorize it may have already happened, others don't think Florida will overtake New York until sometime in 2015 or 2016.
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