People take the oath of citizenship at a naturalization ceremony in New York, May 17, 2013. John Moore/Getty Images

Population growth in the United States continues at near-historic lows — more evidence that the nation’s recovery from the recession is dragging.

The U.S. population is at 316,128,839, a 0.7 percent gain of fewer than 2.3 million people from July 1, 2012, to July 1, 2013, according to Census Bureau estimates released today.

“This decade continues to be the slowest growth decade since the Great Depression,” said Robert Lang, an urban affairs professor at the University of Nevada Las Vegas.

The Great Recession, which ended officially in September 2010, has slowed immigration and birth rates. Recent fertility data from the National Center for Health Statistics show no evidence of an uptick in U.S. births, a result of people’s delaying having children and of an aging population.

Despite the housing bust and a significant slowdown in migration to Sun Belt states during the recession, states such as Arizona, Utah, Colorado and Texas continue to grow at a much faster rate than Rust Belt states in the Northeast and Midwest.

“The Northeast and Midwest are growing at a rate that looks like European growth — slowly,” Lang said.

Reports of the demise of Sun Belt boom states may have been greatly exaggerated.

Texas and Florida gained together almost more people (387,000) than the entire Northeast and Midwest combined (398,000), said Mark Mather, a demographer at the Population Reference Bureau in Washington, D.C.

“Nevada continued to grow at roughly the same rate as last year,” said Kenneth Johnson, senior demographer at the University of New Hampshire’s Carsey institute.

Nevada (with 2.8 million more residents) and Arizona (6.6 million) grew faster than the nation as a whole.

North Dakota’s oil boom brought the state the largest percentage growth in the U.S.: 3.1 percent, to 723,393. The state has gained more people since 2010 than it did during the entire previous decade, Johnson said.