Census shows US is becoming increasingly diverse

On Wednesday, the US Census Bureau released reports projecting that by the end of the decade no single racial or ethnic group will constitute 50% or more of children under 18. Additionally, it predicted that in about 30 years no single group will constitute 50% or more of the country as a whole.

“The next half century marks key points in continuing trends; the U.S. will become a plurality nation, where the non-Hispanic white population remains the largest single group, but no group is in the majority,” said the bureau’s acting director Thomas L. Mesenbourg.

The diversity of the nation’s children is increasing even faster than was previously expected, said William H. Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution. “When the 2020 Census comes around, we’re going to have a majority-minority child population,” he said.

The Census Bureau is currently predicting that by 2018 the percentage of the population under 18 that identifies as non-Hispanic whites will fall below 50% and by 2043 there will be no single majority group in the country.