U.S. Census Shows White Population Shrinking To Below 60%

The proportion of the non-Hispanic white population in the United States has dropped below 60 percent for the first time on record, while the population among minority groups has sharply increased.

The U.S. Census Bureau released an additional 2020 Census results Tuesday, showing some most detailed portraits of how the United States’ demographics have changed in the last decade.

One of the most interesting results was the record low percentage of the white population in the United States: 58 percent, a sharp decrease from the 64 percent calculated in the last Census report in 2010.

The Census Bureau held a press conference on Thursday to discuss the report. During the briefing, Nicholas Jones, director and senior advisor for race and ethnicity research and outreach at the Census Bureau, said that the new data would help the department have a “more accurate portrait” of the country’s racial and ethnic design.

“As the country has grown, we have continued to evolve in how we measure the race and ethnicity of the people who live here,” Jones said Thursday. “Today’s release of 2020 Census redistricting data provides a new snapshot of the racial and ethnic composition and diversity of the country.”

“The improvements we made to the 2020 Census yield a more accurate portrait of how people self-identify in response to two separate questions on Hispanic origin and race, revealing that the U.S. population is much more multiracial and more diverse than what we measured in the past,” Jones added.

The report also noted that population growth occurred in most metropolitan regions, while general population growth has declined.

“Many counties within metro areas saw growth, especially those in the south and west. However, as we’ve been seeing in our annual population estimates, our nation is growing slower than it used to,” said Marc Perry, a senior demographer at the Census Bureau. “This decline is evident at the local level where around 52% of the counties in the United States saw their 2020 Census populations decrease from their 2010 Census populations.”

Article by Dongyoon Shin