More than 50 percent of children in the United States younger than one year old are not categorized as “white,” the Census Bureau reported last week, and children younger than five years old are nearly 50 percent of the population.
In five states whites have become a minority (making them “majority-minority states”), according to the bureau.
The figures are in keeping with a trend that suggests whites will no longer be the majority population in 2042, when their numbers will slip below 50 percent of the population.
The question, of course, is what the numbers mean for the future of the country.
The Figures
The number of minority babies has increased from 49.5 percent last April to 50.4 percent today, the bureau reported, a minority being “anyone who is not single-race white and not Hispanic.”
The population younger than age 5 was 49.7 percent minority in 2011, up from 49.0 percent in 2010. A population greater than 50 percent minority is considered “majority-minority. …”
There were 114 million minorities in 2011, or 36.6 percent of the U.S. population. In 2010, it stood at 36.1 percent.
Unsurprisingly, states hit hardest by illegal immigration are among those where whites are no longer a majority, the bureau reported: “There were five majority-minority states or equivalents in 2011: Hawaii (77.1 percent minority), the District of Columbia (64.7 percent), California (60.3 percent), New Mexico (59.8 percent) and Texas (55.2 percent). No other state had a minority population greater than 46.4 percent of the total.”
More than 11 percent (348) of the nation’s 3,143 counties were majority-minority as of July 1, 2011, with nine of these counties achieving this status since April 1, 2010. Maverick, Texas, had the largest share (96.8 percent) of its population in minority groups, followed by Webb, Texas (96.4 percent), and Wade Hampton Census Area, Alaska (96.2 percent).
Aging Nation
The Census Bureau figures also show that America is aging, reporting a “small uptick in the nation’s median age, from 37.2 years in 2010 to 37.3 in 2011.”
The 65-and-older population increased from 40.3 million to 41.4 million over the period and included 5.7 million people 85 and older. Likewise, working-age adults (age 18 to 64) saw their numbers rise by about 2 million to 196.3 million in 2011. In contrast, the number of children under 18, 74.0 million in 2011, declined by about 200,000 over the period, largely because of the decline in high school-age children 14 to 17.
Maine is the oldest state (43.2 years) and Utah the youngest (29.5).
Florida had the highest percentage of its population 65 and older (17.6 percent), followed by Maine (16.3 percent). Utah had the highest percentage of its total population younger than 5 (9.3 percent).
Among counties, Sumter, Fla., was the nation’s “oldest,” with 45.5 percent of its population 65 and older, and Geary, Kan., was the nation’s “youngest” (11.4 percent younger than 5).
In an email to Bloomberg News, William Frey, a demographer with the liberal Brookings Institution, explained what the numbers mean: “This is a fundamental tipping point signaling a change in our demographic structure for decades to come.”
Ethnic Breakdown
The bureau also reported that Hispanics are “the most populous minority group,” numbering 52 million in 2011. Having increased their population by 3.1 percent since 2010, they are also the fastest growing minority. “This boosted the Hispanic share of the nation’s total population to 16.7 percent in 2011, up from 16.3 percent in 2010.”
California had the largest Hispanic population of any state on July 1, 2011 (14.4 million), as well as the largest numeric increase within the Hispanic population since April 1, 2010 (346,000). New Mexico had the highest percentage of Hispanics at 46.7 percent.
Los Angeles had the largest Hispanic population of any county (4.8 million) in 2011 and the largest numeric increase since 2010 (73,000). Starr County — on the Mexican border in Texas — had the highest share of Hispanics (95.6 percent).
At 43.9 million in 2011, blacks are the second largest minority in America, the bureau reported, with New York boasting the largest population of blacks at 3.7 million, as of July last year.
Although blacks are the second largest minority, Asians are growing at the second fastest rate, the bureau noted. They “numbered 18.2 million nationally in 2011 … growing 3.0 percent since 2010.”
Not surprisingly, the population of Asians in California is greater than any other state, with 5.8 million as of July 2011, with Los Angeles having the largest Asian population of any country at 1.6 million.
The report didn’t say how many whites live in the country or what percentage of the population they are, although it did report that California is also home to more whites than any other state, with 15 million. “Texas had the largest numeric increase in this population group since 2010 (80,000),” the bureau said, and “Maine had the highest percentage of the non-Hispanic white alone population (94.3 percent).”
Another report from the Census Bureau puts the white population at 72.4 percent out of a population of 311.6 million, or about 225.5 million.
No Surprise
Apropos of Frey’s remark, the figures are not unexpected, as demographers have been predicting what some leftists call “the end of white America” for some time.
In 1998, President Bill Clinton welcomed the wave of immigrants who are slowly replacing the majority population of the United States. And the Census Bureau has been gradually shortening the number of years that will elapse before whites are no longer the majority population.
Projections suggest that whites will be knocked down to minority status by 2042, an estimate that has dropped eight years between 2004 and 2008. By 2050, whites will be just 46 percent of the population. Black numbers will hardly move, hovering around 15 percent. The Hispanic population will double from 15 percent to 30 percent.
Immigration alone will not fuel that growth in the population, a demographer for the Pew Hispanic Center told Bloomberg. Rather, Hispanics are having more children than white non-Hispanics. Reported Bloomberg, “’The growth of Latino residents is the result of a younger population and higher fertility rates,’ said Jeffrey Passel, senior demographer for the Washington-based center.”
“‘The younger the age group, the less white it is,’ he said.”
End of the GOP
Beyond the obvious social and cultural problems these numbers portend, syndicated columnist Pat Buchanan highlights another. The Republican Party will permanently lose power because Hispanics largely vote Democrat.
Noting that “white America is a dying tribe,” Buchanan laid out the grim news for the pachyderms. “Republicans now depend on the vanishing majority for fully 90 percent of their votes in presidential elections, while the Democratic Party wins 60 to 70 percent of the Asian and Hispanic vote and 90 to 95 percent of the black vote,” the former aide to president Nixon, Ford and Reagan wrote. He continued:
The Democratic base is growing inexorably, while the Republican base is shriveling.
Already, California, Illinois and New York are lost. The GOP has not carried any of the three in five presidential elections. When Texas — where whites are a minority and a declining share of the population — tips, how does the GOP put together an electoral majority?
Western states like Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico and Arizona, which Republican nominees like Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan swept almost every time they ran, are becoming problematic for the party.
Noting that “[t]he majority of Hispanics are among that half of the population that pays no income tax and “benefit disproportionately from government programs,” Buchanan asked why they would vote for a party that wants to cut taxes and government spending.
