The New Nation - Internet Edition

WHITES in the United States will reportedly no longer be majority of the population by 2042, nearly a decade earlier than previous projections of the US Census Bureau. While 65 per cent of the US population is projected to be white in 2010, those numbers will start to decline around the 2030s as white deaths outpace births as per bureau figures. In 2042, whites will be outnumbered by Americans who call themselves Hispanic, black, Asian, native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander. By the mid-century when the USA is projected to have a population of 439 million people, 54 per cent of the population will consists of non-whites.

The largest growth is projected to be among Hispanics coming mostly from Mexico, the expected number being 133 million by 2050 due to high birthrates and immigration. No other country has experienced 'such rapid racial and ethnic change,' demographer Mark Mather remarked as quoted by the New York Times. The Asians will increase from 4.5 per cent in 2010 to nearly eight per cent in 2050, but the non-Hispanic black population is expected to remain steady, from 12.2 per cent in 2010 to 11.8 percent by 2050.

The US population is also expected to be much grayer: currently 38.7 million people are aged 65 or older, a figure that will balloon to 88.5 million by 2050. Some sections of the United States already have reached the point where whites are minorities, such as the states of California and Texas. The findings also pointed to swelling of the US population as a whole, adding more than 130 million people to its current total of around 305 million, by 2050. And along with the overall growth, the number of mixed-race Americans is expected to triple, reaching 16 million, or close to four per cent of the population.