Pennsylvania has a population problem.

The problem isn’t that the overall population is shrinking. It’s not. According to the 2020 census, the number of people who call the state home grew by 2.4% — just over 300,000 — in 10 years.

That’s not bad. Compared to neighboring West Virginia, which lost 3.2% of its population, it’s pretty good.

It’s par for the course in other comparable states. The latest census counts saw plenty of states that are perennially populous lose congressional seats because of the way the number of people are distributed across the country. Like Pennsylvania, the states of Ohio, New York, Michigan and California are all losing seats despite posting growth.

Now that the redistricting maps have been drawn so we can put the fights about who is losing representation behind us, it’s time to take a look at the why.

The reason Pennsylvania ranked 43rd in population growth while Utah, Idaho, Texas, North Dakota and Nevada are showing double-digit increases is maybe the simplest explanation ever.

It’s called “natural decline.” If you think that sounds a lot like natural causes, you’re not wrong. It means more people died than were born.

The Pittsburgh metro area — including Allegheny and Westmoreland counties — was not only the largest area of natural decline in the state, but it also was the largest nationwide.

This reflects something Pennsylvania has struggled with for years: The population is aging. Pennsylvania does not have the largest per capita group of older residents in the country. That spot goes to Maine. Pennsylvania is in ninth place. But only second-place Florida’s percentage of 65-plus residents is bigger than the Keystone State’s 2.4 million seniors — about 19% of the overall population of 12.8 million.

Is there much that can be done about that? We can’t force people to have children. People are living longer — or they were before covid-19 started eroding lifespan numbers — but no one lives forever.

The immediate reaction tends to be toward correcting the trend, and that is a good goal. Finding ways to bring in new people to a state corrects other issues. It should go hand in hand with more jobs, which means larger tax bases, higher property values, growing schools and more.

Unfortunately, we can’t just plan for the end we want. That would be like buying a house based on a budget that includes winning the lottery. It sets you up for failure.

The natural decline trend has to be a part of more planning efforts in everything from state projects to school districts to counties to municipalities. It has to be a priority because the needs of an aging population skew in different directions than a growing one.

Pennsylvania needs to prioritize property tax reform to acknowledge that fewer people will be able to pay property taxes. There needs to be increased attention to end-of-life care — both in facilities and at home. There needs to be more focus on the needs of seniors wherever they may be, including those who are poor or have no family and those with criminal records.

Too often, all of these issues are left as afterthoughts, but the numbers tell us they won’t be able to be dismissed for long.

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