Census: Diversity to reign by 2042

PAUL OVERBERG and EMILY BAZAR

Published: 08.14.2008

The number of minorities in the United States is growing so briskly that non-Hispanic whites will lose their majority status in 2042, years before demographers had previously projected, according to Census data released today.

The population is surging on almost all fronts, the new figures show. There will be 400 million people in the U.S. in 31 years, up from fewer than 305 million now.

The swelling numbers will transform Americans' standard of living from the environment to public schools, demographers and public policy experts say.

"It affects quality of life in very important ways," says Mark Mather, who studies U.S. demographic trends for the Population Reference Bureau, a research group in Washington. "We're already experiencing that in traffic congestion, in schools and in our crowded coastal areas."

Dramatic growth in the numbers of legal and illegal immigrants, especially Hispanics, has propelled the increase. Annual immigration this year is about 1 million and is projected to double by 2050.

Jeffrey Passel, senior demographer at the Pew Hispanic Center, says the earlier projections were low because they underestimated immigration.

"We've measured a much higher immigration in the '90s," he says. "In this decade, those high levels continued."