Over the last four years, annual census surveys have shown the white population has declined by more than 1 million — a drop that is sufficient to wipe out the population growth among white people from 2010 to 2016.
The pace of the decrease is accelerating, too. Between 2016 and 2017, the white population fell by an estimated 129,000 people. From 2019 to 2020, that decline sped up to 482,000.
If trends from annual estimates conducted over the last decade hold, the census data released Thursday is likely to show an America that is, for the first time in the nation’s history, less than 60 percent white.
Minority groups, however, are growing.
The number of Hispanic or Latino Americans grew by at least 1 million in eight of the last 10 years, and by 10.5 million between 2010 and 2020. The number of Asian Americans grew by about half a million in seven of the last 10 years, up 4.7 million over the decade. And the number of African Americans grew by at least 300,000 in eight of the last 10 years, or an estimated 3.4 million since the 2010 census.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member