Census: White Population Shrank For First Time Ever

The Wall Street Journal reports:

The first detailed results of the 2020 census show that the total white population shrank for the first time in the nation’s history as the U.S. diversified and continued to grow more rapidly in the South and Southwest.

The nation’s population grew just 7.4% during the decade, the second slowest on record for a decennial census. Only the 1930s—the era of the Great Depression—recorded slower growth. Slightly more than half—51.1%—of the total U.S. population growth between 2010 and 2020 came from growth among Hispanic or Latino residents, the Census Bureau said.

As many cities and suburbs continued to grow, the bureau said that the trend toward rural depopulation continued during the decade. More than half of U.S. counties—52%—had smaller populations in 2020 than in 2010.

The Associated Press reports:

Even before it began, the headcount was challenged by attempted political interference from the Trump administration’s failed efforts to add a citizenship question to the census form, a move that critics feared would have a chilling effect on immigrant or Hispanic participation. The effort was stopped by the Supreme Court.

The information was originally supposed to be released by the end of March, but that deadline was pushed back because of delays caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

The start of the 2020 census for most U.S. residents coincided with the spread of the coronavirus last year, forcing the Census Bureau to delay operations and extend the count’s schedule. Because census data is tied to where people were on April 1, 2020, the numbers will not reflect the loss of nearly 620,000 people in the U.S. who died from COVID-19.

The Washington Post reports:



Estimates from 2016 to 2020 show that all of the country’s population growth during that period came from increases in people of color. The largest and most steady gains were among Hispanics, who have doubled their population share over the past three decades to almost 20 percent and who are believed to account for half of the nation’s growth since 2010. They are expected to drive about half the growth in more than a dozen states, including Texas, Florida, Arizona, New Mexico and Nevada.

Asian people, who made up about 3 percent of the population in 1990, could double that in the 2020 Census, while the Black population’s share is likely to hold steady at around 12.5 percent. Whites are expected to account for over half the growth in only five states, plus the District of Columbia. In 26 states, the number of Whites has declined, according to bureau estimates.