More than half a century ago, a newly re-elected Gov. Tom McCall uttered the words that still are much debated in Oregon.

In a January 1971 interview with Terry Drinkwater for CBS News, McCall said Oregon welcomed visitors.

“But for heaven’s sake, don’t move here to live!” he added. “Or if you do have to move in to live, don’t tell any of your neighbors where you are going.”

If McCall meant to discourage the state’s growth, he failed, at least during the 1970s. Oregon’s population barely broke 2 million in 1970, but by the next federal census in 1980, a surge of people pushed that total by more than 500,000 to 2,633,156.

Then came the economic downturn of the early 1980s, when Oregon recorded two of its three years of actual population losses in 1982 and 1983.

Many of those people left Oregon as timber production dropped and mills closed — although the output per worker increased by the close of the decade as automation led to gains in productivity.

The third year of population decline was in 2022.

Today, four years since the onset of the worldwide coronavirus pandemic, Oregon’s population is either growing more slowly or actually declining, depending on the source.

According to state estimates by Portland State University, Oregon grew from 4,269,529 in 2022 — after that total was revised downward — to 4,291,525 in 2023 for a modest gain of 21,996.

But according to the U.S. Census Bureau, its Oregon estimates for those years are lower by 23,000 — and the overall difference with PSU estimates between 2021 and 2023 is 57,000 less, about the size of Tigard’s population.

Mike Wilkerson, director of analytics at the Portland firm ECONorthwest, described the situation as the “new normal” at a presentation Feb. 15 to the Portland Metro Chamber. The firm bases its numbers on the Census estimates, which can be compared with similar cities.

According to the Census Bureau, Oregon and California were among 18 states with estimated population losses between mid-2021 and mid-2022 — and among just eight states with losses between mid-2022 and mid-2023. The only other Western state in both groups was Hawaii.