Minorities May Become the United States Majority

Here is a synopsis of:  In a Generation Minorities May Be the United States Majority by Sam Roberts

Dr. Gibson once estimated that in 1492 about 96% of the inhabitants of what is now the United States were American Indian and the remaining 4% Polynesian. Long before the English landed in Jamestown, the Spanish became America’s first minority. The Spanish settled on the West Coast and the English settled on the East Coast. When the first census was conducted in 1790, about 64% of the people counted were white, a bit more than half of whom were of English origin. By 1900, about 9 in 10 Americans were non-Hispanic white, mostly of European ancestry. Presently the Census Bureau calculates that by 2042 (just recently revised to 2052): Ethnic minorities are expected to comprise a majority of the Nation’s Population. What you may see…

Hispanic, black, Asian, American Indian, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander will together outnumber non-Hispanic whites. Higher birth rates among immigrants. Influx of Foreigners 1.3 million up to 2 million by mid century. No other country has experienced such rapid racial ethnic change.

Presently, demographers are projecting that the population will top 400 million in 2039 and reach 439 million in 2050. So-called minorities will constitute a majority of the nation’s children under 18 by 2023 and of working-age Americans by 2039. For the first time, both the number and the proportion of non-Hispanic whites, who now account for 66% of the population, will decline, starting around 2030. By 2050, their share will fall to 46 %. Why?

Higher mortality rates among older native-born white Americans and higher birthrates rates among immigrants and their children. In the 1970s, ’80s and ’90s, there were more Hispanic immigrants than births. This decade, there are more births than immigrants. Foreign-born Americans, now about 12 %, could surpass the 1910 historic high of nearly 15 % by about 2025 and may approach 20% in 2050.

According to the new forecast, by 2050, the number of Hispanic people will nearly triple, to 133 million from 47 million, to account for 30 % of Americans, compared with 15% today. People, who say they are Asian, with their ranks soaring to 41 million from 16 million, will make up more than 9% of the population, up from 5 percent. More than three times as many people are expected to identify themselves as multiracial — 16 million, accounting for nearly 4% of the population. Several states, including California and Texas, have already reached the point where members of minorities are in the majority. The population of people who define themselves a black is projected to rise from 4. 1 million, to 66 million yet increasing its overall share by barely two percentage points, to 15%.What’s happening now in terms of increasing diversity probably is unprecedented,” said Campbell Gibson, a retired census demographer...

All the projections are subject to changing cultural definitions. The share of Americans who identify themselves as white, regardless of their ethnicity, will remain largely unchanged, declining from less than 80% in 2010 to about 76% when the majority-minority benchmark is reached in 2042.

By the 2028 presidential election, for the first time ever in the history of the United States racial and ethnic minorities will constitute a majority of adults between the ages of 18 and 29. Two years later (2030), when all the baby boomers will have turned 65, nearly 20% of Americans, compared with fewer than 13% today, will be over 65. By 2050, about 89 million Americans will be in that group, more than double the number today.

In 2020, the burdens of seniors to the white working-aged population will become larger than the burdens of children. The changes projected by the census point toward a nation in which the older population will be whiter (deaths will outnumber births among whites, beginning in the 2020s) and where black Americans will still have slightly higher rates of infant mortality and lower life expectancy.

As an addendum, the previously mentioned time frame was extended 10 years. Within the data there is implied multiple and simultaneously occurring trends: a massive multifaceted global migration, a convergence of peoples, shifts in behavior if you may, creating newly emerging population centers: globalization; the likes of which the world has never seen nor experienced.

2008 08 14 Outline; Trends, New York Times: In a Generation Minorities May Be the United States Majority By Sam Roberts