As of 2022, California is the most populous state in the U.S., with 39 million people. In 2010, California had 37 million inhabitants.

However, California has had a net loss of domestic migrants yearly since 1989, a phenomenon called California exodus. After the 2020 census, California even lost a U.S. House seat for the first time in its 170-year history, as it grew more slowly than other states. In 2013, the California Department of Finance forecasted that the state's population would reach 53 million in 2060. In 2023, the California Department of Finance updated its forecast and concluded that the state's population would stagnate around 40 million inhabitants from 2023 to 2060. In October 2023, the nonpartisan Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research found that California was "hemorrhaging residents to neighboring states like Texas, Arizona, and Nevada" at "higher levels than ever before".

Based on the 2010 and 2030 U.S. censuses, will California lose inhabitants between 2010 and 2030? (i.e., will the 2030 census population be less than 37,253,956?)