For over a decade, PARCA has documented the role of court costs as they exist at the intersection of public finance and public safety, sometimes providing the only analysis of this important source of revenue. In a report sent to lawmakers earlier this week, Chief Justice Sarah Stewart writes that Alabama lawmakers should standardize court costs statewide, revise old rules to create flexibility as to how court cost revenue can be spent, and identify more sustainable ways to fund local services that is “separate from the courthouse filing counter.”

The report is a product of the Joint Interim Study Commission on Court Costs, which was created in 2025 by an Act of the Alabama State Legislature and met several times in 2025. As defined by the Interim Study Commission, court costs are “money a person pays when they file a case in court or, in criminal cases, when they are convicted.” Every case type comes with standardized statewide costs. Most counties have layered one or more additional costs on top of those, often to pay for expenses like jails.

Lawmakers tasked Commission, created by Act 2025-244, with evaluating court costs and making recommendations to improve the system. Its key findings include:

1. There are more than 250 local “add-on” court costs created by statute or local constitutional amendment.
2. Over a dozen local court costs contain “sunset” language (meaning lawmakers intended them to expire at some point), but may still be assessed today.
3. Local add-ons for civil filing fees range from $0 in some counties to $182 in the most expensive (Madison County), with a statewide average of $30.
4. While civil filing fees are collected at nearly 100% of what is assessed, criminal court costs, fines, and fees are collected at 15%-20%,“because most people convicted of crimes have very limited ability to pay, especially while incarcerated.”
5. Practices around court costs vary in Alabama’s neighboring states, with some having uniform costs across counties and others having an even more patchwork system than Alabama.

The Commission’s recommendations were extensive. The included simplifying and standardizing court costs, creating processes for periodic reviews, adding measures for increased transparency and public accountability, finding other ways to fund non-court functions, and reconsidering the “economic feasibility of relying on often-uncollectible criminal court costs and fees.”

To learn more about Alabama’s patchwork system of local court costs and their association with local jail rates, click here.

For a deep dive into how criminal court costs, fines, and fees operate in one Alabama county, examining both public finance and equity implications, click here.

For PARCA’s 2014 Court Cost Study, which remains the only comprehensive existing public analysis of court costs in Alabama, click here.

Read the full report here.

Only 5% of registered voters in the Alabama Congressional Districts holding elections last week cast ballots, producing one of the state’s lowest federal election turnout levels in recent history.

Printable PDF available here

The Tuesday, August 11 elections were highly unusual. They marked the second time this year voters were asked to choose party nominees for U.S. House of Representatives seats in the 1st, 2nd, 6th, and 7th Congressional Districts. But the vote held on May 19 was nullified before it took place. The week before the primary, Gov. Kay Ivey called for the August special elections in reconfigured versions of those districts after the U.S. Supreme Court allowed Alabama to adopt maps drawn by the Alabama Legislature in 2023.

The rescheduled primaries did away with the usual runoff, with candidates needing only a plurality of votes to win their party’s nomination.

Given the unique circumstances, low turnout was expected, but it was also consistent with a years-long trend of low electoral participation in Alabama. According to data tracked by the Election Lab at the University of Florida, Alabama’s rank in general election turnout, measured as total ballots cast divided by voting-eligible population, has dropped significantly since 2010.

In 2010, when contests between Democrats and Republicans were more competitive, 43% of the state’s eligible voters participated in the midterm elections, and Alabama ranked 28th nationally in general election participation.

But now, after more than a decade of declining electoral competition, Alabama has one of the lowest political participation rates in the U.S. During the 2022 midterm elections, only 38% of eligible voters turned out, putting Alabama 46th in general election participation.

Factors that Weigh on Participation

Alabama’s participation is hindered by relatively inaccessible elections. After the 2024 election, the U.S. Census Bureau surveyed voters who were registered but did not cast ballots and found that conflicting work or school schedules, illness, and disability were among the top reasons cited for not voting.

How Alabama Democracy Compares, a 2024 PARCA report, found that some states have addressed these concerns by adopting measures such as excuse-free mail-in voting, excuse-free absentee voting, and in-person early voting, none of which have been implemented in Alabama.

Weighing voting regulations and procedures, political science professors Scot Schraufnagel, Michael J. Pomante II, and Quan Li developed the Cost of Voting Index (COVI), which provides for comparison of voting ease across all 50 states. Across all presidential cycles since the metric was first calculated, the negative correlation between high COVI scores and turnout has remained statistically significant. In 2024, Alabama ranked 44th nationally, meaning Alabama’s electoral regulations and procedures impose among the highest costs to citizens who wish to participate in democracy.

Compared to 2022 and 2024, Alabama’s 2026 primary season has seen only a slight rise in participation, one that does not portend a significant turnout spike to come during the 2026 general election. The most notable variation in the state’s participation trend has been a drop in Republican turnout in the May primary and an offsetting surge in Democratic turnout.

Republican candidates received 493,988 votes in May’s gubernatorial primary, significantly fewer than the 655,752 they received in 2022. Conversely, Democratic candidates received 365,368 votes in May’s gubernatorial primary, significantly more than the 168,224 they received in 2022. The leading Democrat in the governor’s race, former Sen. Doug Jones, received 287,106 votes, while in the Republican contest, Sen. Tommy Tuberville received 422,255.

The overall turnout rate for the May primary remained below 25%, and the rate dropped to 11% during the June primary runoffs before falling to 5% on Tuesday. None of the state’s primaries or primary runoffs has drawn a turnout rate higher than 25% since 2020.

Such low participation numbers are of concern to all Alabama residents, especially as redistricting has become more scientific, more frequent, and more controversial.

For two decades, Alabama has been at the center of national court fights over the line between redistricting for partisan political purposes, which is legal, and redistricting in a manner that is racially discriminatory, which is illegal.

In its most recent ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court narrowed the circumstances in which courts could find redistricting efforts racially discriminatory. The ensuing redistricting efforts in Alabama and across the country have been even more aggressively partisan.

Partisan redistricting tends to produce predictable outcomes. To the extent that there is competition among candidates, it occurs in the party primary, when relatively few voters are engaged. That allows Alabama officials to be elected by small groups of politically engaged voters, who may not be representative of their broader constituencies.

August Special Primary Election

This dynamic was on display last Tuesday, when unofficial results indicated that just 113,493 of 2,165,142 registered voters cast ballots in the four congressional districts that held elections. At 11%, the highest reported turnout rate was in Coffee County. Use the tabs below to navigate to election results by district, or click this link.

A number of factors unique to Tuesday’s elections played a role in depressing turnout.

Primaries and primary runoffs for statewide and federal offices were held as planned in May and June. As such, Tuesday’s ballots didn’t feature the high-profile races, like those for governor and for U.S. Senate, that typically drive turnout in midterm years. 

Likely dampening turnout was also possible confusion among the electorate, with some voters having submitted absentee ballots before the primaries were rescheduled and others seeing their district change between May and August. The replacement election only concerned the four Congressional Districts that changed.

Areas where district boundaries shifted between maps are outlined below. Use the toggles to change between maps.

Overall turnout was further dragged down by the fact that some districts didn’t hold primaries for both parties: Democratic incumbents Shomari Figures and Terri Sewell, for instance, faced no challengers in the 2nd and 7th Districts.  

Below is a graph of Alabama’s voter turnout in statewide and federal primaries and primary runoffs since 2016. Turnout is reported by the Alabama Secretary of State’s Office and expressed as total ballots cast divided by registered voters. Alabama did not hold a primary runoff election for a statewide or federal office in 2016.

After falling from the primaries to the primary runoffs, turnout further declined Tuesday, leaving multiple races decided by fewer than 15,000 voters. Running against three opponents in the 6th District, Maurice Mercer became the Democratic Party’s nominee with just 5,398 votes. 

Elections that lack high-profile statewide races are particularly vulnerable to turnout issues. During Alabama’s 2024 primary runoffs, which drew a reported turnout of 8%, 14,705 votes were enough for Caroleene Dobson to become the Republican Party’s nominee for U.S. House in the 2nd District.  

Voter turnout is low despite the importance of U.S. House primaries in Alabama, a state with no consistently competitive Congressional Districts. Of the 56 general elections and one special general election Alabama has held for Congress since 2010, only three were decided by fewer than ten percentage points. 

While low turnout in primary and primary runoff elections is neither a new phenomenon nor one unique to Alabama, it has taken on greater significance as Alabama’s general elections have grown less competitive.  

Elections like Tuesday’s, where less than 6% of registered voters exercised their right to vote, threaten to undermine democratic representation, opening the door for officials to assume office based on the preferences of a select group of voters rather than the electorate as a whole.

New research led by the Public Affairs Research Council of Alabama (PARCA) and MDRC indicates that each additional $100 in cumulative court fees for criminal cases is associated with an additional 34 jail detentions per 100,000 people at the county level. This small but significant increase suggests that fee increases could increase detention rather than deter it. 

Counties often say local fee increases are needed to offset costs associated with processing criminal cases. Counties also pay the cost of housing people in their jails. This research suggests that new revenue from local fee increases should be weighed against the new costs (both social and fiscal) from housing more people in jail.

Read the full analysis here.

Beyond the Democratic and Republican primary elections scheduled for May 19, voters will decide the fate of two statewide amendments to the Alabama Constitution.

One would prevent local district attorneys’ salaries from being reduced during an elected term of office. Another would give judges discretion to deny bail to people charged with certain crimes.

Those amendments will be listed on the ballot in both the Republican and Democratic primaries. Alabama is an open primary state, which means voters don’t have to register with a party to participate in a primary. A voter simply requests the ballot of the primary they want to vote in.

If the voter doesn’t wish to vote in either party’s primary, he or she can request an amendment-only ballot.

PARCA has provided an objective, nonpartisan analysis of both amendments.

Click here for a PDF of the full report or view below.

Economic footprint

Active nonprofits generate $16.9 billion in annual revenue, but that total is highly concentrated: 0.35% of organizations (the 21 largest) account for nearly half of all income. The median nonprofit operates on about $200,000 a year, with two-thirds reporting less than $500,000.

Public investment

Between 2015 and 2025, Alabama nonprofits received $5.5 billion in federal awards—an average of $553 million per year. More than 60% of those dollars flow through the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services; most reach communities through state agencies such as the Alabama Department of Economic and Community Affairs (ADECA), the Alabama Department of Public Health (ADPH), and the Department of Early Childhood Education.

Philanthropic capacity

Alabama’s 822 foundations hold $4.5 billion in assets—ranking 49th per capita. Assuming a typical 5.6% payout, foundations could distribute about $226 million per year, only one-third of recent federal funding. Private philanthropy cannot replace sustained public investment.

Key finding

Alabama’s progress depends on collaboration among government, philanthropy, and community organizations. Nonprofits are not a substitute for government; they are its local expression. Strengthening this partnership—through data transparency, diversified funding, and civic trust—is essential to building a resilient Alabama.

Click here for the full report, or view below.

Passage of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (H.R. 1) in the U.S. House has sparked discussions about the impact of reductions in federal funding across the U.S. KFF, a nonprofit policy analysis organization formerly known as Kaiser Family Foundation, estimates that the House Budget Committee’s reconciliation bill would reduce federal Medicaid spending by $791 billion without accounting for interactions that would lower estimates to $723 billion. Almost 85% of the total savings derived from five features:

• Mandating work and reporting requirements ($280 billion),
• Repealing rules simplifying Medicaid eligibility and renewal ($167 billion),
• Creating a moratorium on new or increased provider taxes ($89 billion),
• Revising state-directed payment limitations ($73 billion), and
• Increasing the frequency of eligibility re-determinations for the ACA expansion group ($53 billion).

Approximately $357 billion of the reductions would only apply to states that adopted ACA expansion.

Printable PDF available here.

Federal cuts to states of $723 billion over 10 years would represent 11% of federal spending on Medicaid over the period. KFF estimates that the cuts range from 5% in Alabama, Wisconsin, and Wyoming to 15% in Washington, Louisiana, and Illinois.

Congressional Budget Office estimates a 10.3 million loss of Medicaid enrollment by 2034, representing 12% of projected enrollment in that year. At the state level, the largest reductions in Medicaid enrollment would be in Washington and Virginia, decreasing by 25% and 20%, respectively. In Alabama, that would be about 4% or approximately 47,000 people.

As described in a previous post, Alabama receives more than $60 billion in federal transfer payments to individuals from Social Security, unemployment benefits, educational benefits such as Pell Grants, or as payments on behalf of individuals in Medicare or Medicaid, etc.

As the Economic Innovation Group noted in its report, The Great Transfer-mation: How American Communities Became Reliant on Income from Government, the main reason federal transfers have increased is the increase in the percentage of the population over the age of 65. Other economic factors have contributed to a reliance on federal transfers, particularly in rural areas with declining economic conditions.

Currently, among the transfer payments are approximately $15.5 billion (2022) to medical providers on behalf of Medicare recipients and another $7.6 billion (2022) on behalf of Medicaid patients, including covering approximately 44.7% of births in Alabama in 2023. Rates vary dramatically across counties, with 78.6% of births in Wilcox County covered by Medicaid to a low of 23.3% in Shelby County. Georgetown University’s McCourt School for Public Policy found that many small towns are dependent on Medicaid/CHIP funding. With 48.6% of children in rural areas of Alabama enrolled in 2023, the state ranks 12^th in the nation on that metric.

This past legislative session, the Alabama Legislature passed Senate Bill 102, expanding Medicaid benefits for pregnant women “with an estimated addition of $1 million annually for fiscal years 2026, 2027, and 2028, consisting of $726,300 in federal funds and $273,700 in state funds, by providing certain prenatal coverage to women found presumptively eligible by a qualified provider.” Governor Kay Ivey signed the bill on May 1.

Many medical facilities in Alabama depend on federal funding from Medicaid and Medicare patients. According to KFF, Medicare covered 63% of certified nursing facility residents in Alabama, while Medicaid covered approximately 13%, with only 24% covered by other private funding sources.

For the 80 hospitals in Alabama, operating margins were approximately 2.9% in 2023. However, they are generally thinner in poorer rural areas of the state. Nationwide, operating margins in rural hospitals are notoriously thin, with 44% of rural hospitals operating in the red. According to KFF, “As of July 2024, Medicaid was the primary payer for 63% of nursing facility residents; Medicare for 13% of residents; and the remaining 24% of residents had another primary payer (ex. private insurance, out-of-pocket, etc.) Medicare does not generally cover long-term care but does cover up to 100 days of skilled nursing facility care following a qualifying hospital stay.” 

In states without Medicaid expansion, just over half (53%) of rural hospitals operate in the red. Reductions in Medicaid or Medicare could have a significant impact on rural hospitals. KFF reports that rural hospitals had an average operating margin of 1.7% in 2023. Reductions in these amounts, whether direct payments to individuals or payments on behalf of recipients, as in the case of Medicaid and Medicare, would reduce, dollar for dollar, the purchasing power in those communities.

Using the slider and program selector in the visualization below, estimates of how a percentage decrease for each kind of transfer can be adjusted to find dollar amounts for hypothetical decreases:

Alabama is not alone. The same kind of dependence can be seen across the country.

There are common patterns across the places where economic activity has been challenging, including the Texas Valley, the Mississippi Delta, Appalachia, and tribal territories. Still, many communities have aging populations, with high percentages of transfer payments compared to earned personal income, as shown below:

For details on the calculation of personal income and transfer payments, see this post on Github:
https://github.com/EIG-Research/EIG-Great-Transfer-Mation

PARCA is re-examining Alabama’s Constitution in light of the 2022 passage of a revised and reorganized version of the state’s fundamental law.

The approval of the Constitution of 2022 was the culmination of decades of advocacy. Some important changes were achieved, including a substantial reorganization and the removal of racist and unconstitutional provisions central to the spirit of the state’s 1901 Constitution.

And yet, the Alabama Constitution of 2022 maintains the fundamental shackles on government from the 1901 Constitution. Embedded in the Constitution is a tax system that is inadequate, inefficient, and inequitable.

Since the early 1990s, PARCA’s How Alabama Taxes Compare analysis has found that Alabama state and local governments consistently collect less per capita in taxes than almost all other states. After occupying the bottom spot for most of the past 30 years, Alabama has traded back and forth with Tennessee for last place since 2018. This year, Tennessee’s per capita collections came in $4 lower than Alabama’s, resulting in a rank for Alabama of No. 49.

Alabama continues to collect less per capita in state and local property taxes than any other state. Property taxes are strictly limited by provisions in the state constitution.

Low taxes create some advantages. Low property taxes on land and homes are attractive in some regards, decreasing the cost of homeownership and shielding rural land and farms from development pressure. Lower taxes also can be attractive to businesses and individuals moving to the state.

However, low property taxes come at a cost, creating a greater reliance on other taxes, mainly sales taxes. Those sales taxes put a particular burden on low-income Alabamians. Low tax collections also mean that Alabama state and local governments have less to invest in services such as education, health, public safety, and the justice system. That is in a state with high poverty rates, low educational attainment, poorer health outcomes, and higher rates of violent crime than most other states. In turn, high poverty and less economic activity mean less wealth to tax and, thus, lower tax collections.

Inadequate

In contrast to other states, where the state legislature and local governments generally have the power to adjust tax rates, Alabama’s constitution sets limits, rates, and procedural restraints on state and local taxes. That makes taxes hard to raise, adjust, or rebalance. In the end, Alabama’s lower base of wealth and structural and cultural resistance to taxes mean that governments here have less to spend on providing vital public services, placing Alabama in the bottom ten states in most spending categories.

Continue reading the full report here: The Alabama Constitution’s Impact on Taxes and Spending

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This report is one of a series of reports examining Alabama’s current constitutional framework, identifying remaining obstacles to a modern constitution and possible paths forward in areas such as education, economy, healthcare, democracy, liberty & justice, finances, and related areas. Other reports in the series include The Government Closest to the People? The Statehouse, the Courthouse and City Hall and How Alabama Democracy Compares.

The project is supported, in part, by the Alabama Citizens for Constitutional Reform (ACCR). Both ACCR and PARCA are nonpartisan organizations, and our members and supporters are Republicans, Democrats, and independents. Former Governor Albert Brewer and former Samford University President Thomas Corts, both deceased, were founding leaders in both organizations.

Alabama voters adopted a revised and reorganized Constitution in 2022.

However, the “new” Constitution preserved the fundamental attitudes and mechanics of the previous Constitution.

Adopted in 1901, that constitution was designed for an agrarian state, strictly limiting government power to tax land. It forbade the state from engaging in “internal improvements” and disenfranchised blacks and poor whites. Some of those provisions were loosened through amendments over time. Others were found unconstitutional and struck down by the federal courts.  

But one of the essential elements remains its concentration of power in the state government, the Legislature in particular.

Local governments were granted only the powers the Legislature or the Constitution explicitly permitted.

The ruling elite of the time looked with disdain at local government officials. Thomas L. Bulger of Dadeville, a delegate to the Constitutional Convention of 1901, expressed the prevailing attitude during the constitutional debates:

“No gentleman on this floor will contend that his Commissioners’ Court at home is more capable of legislating for the people of his county than the General Assembly, composed of 100 select men,” Bulger said.

And thus, to this day, a sizeable portion of the state Legislature’s business pertains to matters that are specific to particular counties or cities, not the state itself.

More than 35,000 local laws govern everything from local taxes to whether a sheriff’s deputy can keep his gun and badge upon retirement. Over time, in a confusing and convoluted process, the Constitution was amended over 1,000 times to meet the needs of modern life, swelling the document into the longest state constitution in the nation. It is believed to be the world’s longest constitution, and even with the 2022 reorganization, it will continue to grow.

The bulk of the state’s fundamental law is now made up of exceptions and exemptions to the general framework and principles a constitution is supposed to enumerate. Two-thirds of Alabama’s constitutional amendments apply to individual cities and counties. In effect, every county has its own version of the Constitution. And counties and cities still must ask the Legislature for the tools they need to manage basic affairs.

In many ways, though, the lack of home rule in Alabama reflects how Alabamians feel about government. They want limited government. They want limits on taxation. They do not trust governments to carry out their wishes. And they want to be left alone.

That is, until they demand that government step in and solve a problem. And, often, that requires a trip to Montgomery.

The balance of power and responsibility between state and local officials is an eternal struggle.

In the 1901 debates, Bulger was answered by John A. Rogers of Gainesville in Sumter County, who asked:

“Why is it that these people can select such fine representatives to the Legislature, and yet it is feared that they won’t be able to select satisfactory County Boards to handle these matters?”

Perhaps in the 21^st century, it is time to revisit Roger’s thoughts and consider whether the same voters who elect Alabama legislators to enact state policy can be trusted to vote for local officials from their own communities who will reflect citizen wishes on local matters.

Read the full report here: The Government Closest to the People? The Statehouse, the Courthouse and City Hall.

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This report is one of a series of reports examining Alabama’s current constitutional framework, identifying remaining obstacles to a modern constitution and possible paths forward in areas such as education, economy, healthcare, democracy, liberty & justice, finances, and related areas.

The project is supported, in part, by the Alabama Citizens for Constitutional Reform (ACCR). Both ACCR and PARCA are nonpartisan organizations, and our members and supporters are Republicans, Democrats, and independents. Former Governor Albert Brewer and former Samford University President Thomas Corts, both deceased, were founding leaders in both organizations.

When Alabamians vote on November 5, they will be asked to vote on one statewide amendment.

“Proposing an amendment to the Constitution of Alabama of 2022, to grant certain sixteenth section and indemnity school lands that are owned in fee simple by the Franklin County School System, are located in Fayette County and Walker County, and are for the exclusive use of schools in the Franklin County School System to the Franklin County Board of Education; and to provide for the distribution of any proceeds and interest generated by this land.”

Proposed by Act No. 2024-301 (House Bill 302, 2024 Regular Legislative Session)
Bill Sponsor: Representative Kiel

This proposal seeks to amend the Constitution of Alabama of 2022 to address the management of a piece of land in Fayette and Walker Counties that is to benefit the Franklin County Board of Education.

Since this Amendment concerns land owned in two counties and a school board in a third county, it requires a statewide vote.

The land in question is designated to support public education and stems from an eighteenth-century practice where the federal government designated land in each county for the support of public education in that county. These designations predate Alabama’s statehood.

In the late nineteenth century, the Alabama Legislature gave some school boards, including Franklin County, additional land, sometimes outside their home county, to ensure each school board owned land of approximately equal value.

State law stipulates that such lands are held in trust by the Alabama State Department of Education and managed by the Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources. The Department is empowered to lease or sell the land, with revenue provided to the school system the land is designed to support.

Amendment 1 concerns land located in Fayette and Walker Counties that is to benefit the Franklin County Board of Education. The Board cannot independently manage the land and cannot sell the land without the approval of the State Superintendent of Education and the Governor.

Amendment 1, if approved, enables the Franklin County Board of Education to manage and sell the land without prior approval and retain all revenue.

Continue reading the full analysis of Amendment 1 here.

The Huntsville area and Baldwin County continue to add more new residents, while growth in Shelby County and St. Clair County helped the Birmingham Metro Area return to positive growth after two years of population loss. That’s according to new estimates of population change in U.S. counties and metro areas published by the U.S. Census Bureau. The new estimates identify population totals and components of population change as of July 1, 2023.

Printable PDF available here

In addition to the growth in Shelby and St. Clair, Birmingham’s metro population got a boost from an accounting change. In the 2022 estimates, the Birmingham-Hoover MSA ranked No. 50 in population among metropolitan areas and seemed destined to fall out of the top 50 metro areas.

However, in 2023, Walker County was re-added to the Birmingham metro, which boosted the Birmingham MSA population by almost 65,000 and allowed it to climb to the 47th most populous metropolitan area.

Metro areas are clusters of counties where a significant percentage of the population moves back and forth across county lines for work and commerce. According to the most recent data, about 26% of Walker County’s resident workforce commuted to work in Jefferson County or other counties in the MSA. That’s above the 25% threshold that triggers inclusion in the MSA. Walker was historically part of the MSA.

Consisting of 7 counties with a population of 1.2 million, Birmingham is the state’s largest metro area. Huntsville’s MSA, comprised of Limestone and Madison Counties, is second with 527,254.

Trends

As observed in the PARCA’s analysis of state-level estimates released earlier this year, the decline in deaths related to the Covid-19 pandemic improved baseline conditions for population growth. In the 2021 and 2022 estimates, deaths far outnumbered births. In 2023, the number of deaths in Alabama continued to drop, though, due to an aging population and lower birth rate, deaths still outnumbered births.

International immigration to Alabama remains low, but domestic immigration continues to accelerate, according to the estimates. Alabama netted 30,744 new residents through domestic in-migration in 2023, building on an upward trend.

Domestic in-migration is powering population growth in hot spots like Madison, Limestone County, and Baldwin, as well as in suburban counties around Birmingham and Montgomery. In the latter cases, the central county is losing population while suburban counties gain. Across Alabama, 38 of the 67 counties are seeing more people moving into the county than moving out.

Calhoun and Etowah counties, home to Anniston and Gadsden, respectively, are showing population growth after years of decline. Mobile County also grew, breaking a streak of decline. In fact, all of the state’s metro areas posted population gains except for the Columbus, GA—Metro Area, which includes Phenix City and Russell County.

Rural counties, particularly in Alabama’s Black Belt, continued to lose population. The biggest drop in percentage terms was Bullock County, where the population declined by 2.4%, or 246 residents, according to the estimates. Hale County was the exception to the Black Belt trend. Hale added 289 residents, which amounts to a 2% population increase in a year.

In numeric terms, Jefferson County lost the most people, with a decline of 2,186. That is less of a loss than in 2021 or 2022. Deaths were down, births were up, resulting in a positive natural change of 394. International migration added 818, a slight increase over the year before. However, domestic migration remained a drain, with 3,417 more people moving out of the county than moved in, according to estimates.

Montgomery County also continues to see significant domestic outmigration, but a slight rise in international migration and births and a drop in deaths helped offset the outmigration. Montgomery County’s population has decreased by 1,321. Autauga, Elmore, Chilton, and Lee counties grew.

Mobile County grew with a smaller net decline in domestic migration, a slight increase in international migration, and a return to positive natural change (more births than deaths). According to the estimates, Mobile County posted a net addition of 242 residents.

Next-door neighbor Baldwin County added 6,976 people, mostly because of people moving to the coastal county. In percentage terms, the Baldwin County metro area, officially the Daphne-Fairhope-Foley MSA, grew faster than any of the state’s other metro areas.

However, the Huntsville MSA netted the most new residents, with Madison County adding 8,995 and Limestone County adding 3,786. Adjacent North Alabama counties like Lauderdale, Morgan, Marshall, Jackson, Lawrence, and Cullman grew.

The Dothan-area Wiregrass counties also saw population growth, as did counties on the Alabama-Georgia Border like Cleburne, Randolph, and Cherokee.  

Most counties bordering Mississippi lost population. The median age in rural counties tends to be higher, which correlates with higher death rates.

Those counties also tend to experience more people moving out than moving in.

Use the tabs and menus to explore the estimates for counties and metros you are interested in. If you want to see how Alabama compares with the rest of the United States, visualizations of the population estimates and change are available for counties and metros across the country.

Similar stats are available for metro areas as well. Use the controls to zoom in on areas of interest.