U.S. to Be Nearly Half Minority by 2050
By GENARO C. ARMAS
Associated Press Writer
March 18, 2004, 8:53 AM CST
The nation’s Asian and Hispanic populations will roughly triple in size by midcentury, when minority groups overall will be nearly equal in number with whites, the Census Bureau says.
Whites, now about 69 percent of the population, would comprise 50.1 percent of U.S. residents by 2050, bureau projections released Thursday show.
Immigration should continue to play a key role in sparking the explosive growth among Asians and especially Hispanics, said Greg Spencer, a demographer at the Census Bureau.
These demographic shifts will occur as the national population balloons to 420 million at midcentury, rising nearly 50 percent from 2000. Americans will get a bit grayer, too, by 2050 — nearly 21 percent of residents will be age 65 or older, compared with 12 percent now.