How To Calculate A Growth Trend

Growth trends quantify the rate of growth over a specified period of time. A growth trend can be measured over any period of time, such as a month, year or decade. Determining the growth trend can help you predict future growth. For example, if you know the growth trend for a county has been 4 percent for the past 10 years, you can use that information to plan for future needs for city services, such as police or schools.

Step 1

Subtract the size at the end of the specified period from the size at the beginning of the specified period. For example, if you were finding the growth trend for a city for the year and the city had a population of 15,000 at the start of the year and 16,000 at the end of the year, you would subtract 15,000 from 16,000 to get 1,000.

Step 2

Divide the change in size by the original size to find the growth trend expressed as a decimal. In this example, you would divide 1,000 by 15,000 to get 0.0667.

Step 3

Multiply the previous step's result by 100 to convert from a rate to a percentage. Finishing this example, you would multiply 0.0667 by 100 to find the growth trend to be 6.67 percent.