Population, Age, & Commuting
In the past century, the two decades between 1960 and 1980 showed the highest growth rate for Mason County, with the population nearly doubling from 16,251 in 1960, to 31,184 20 years later.
In the decade from 1990 to 2000, the county added 11,064 new residents, an increase of 28.86 percent. By contrast, the rate of population growth for Washington State during that same period was 21.1 percent.
By 2000, county residents numbered 49,405, a number which has held fairly steady in the years since. The 2004 population total for Mason County is estimated to be 50,800.
The County averages many times more than that, 52.8 people per square mile, ranking it 15th highest in density out of 39 counties. It has 28.5 housing units per square mile. Compare those numbers with King County, number one, which has 817 people and 349 housing units per square mile. Twelve percent of the county’s housing units are in less than 1 percent of its area - the 6.1-square-mile burg called Shelton.
Even though population growth slowed in the late ’90s, the county still grew at a faster rate than the state between the 1990 and 2000 censuses (28.9 percent to 21.1 percent.)
The population of this popular retirement community is older than the state as a whole, with 16.5 percent of us 65 or older compared to the state’s 11.2 percent. The number of seniors is growing, from 3,934 in 1980 to 8,149 in 2000. They bring a wealth of experience and as a rule have stable incomes that help the economy.
Increasingly, more working-age residents commute beyond the county’s borders for employment, with a 30-minute drive being average.