Data Projecting U.S. Whites Losing Majority Status Disputed

By approximately 2045, data indicates that the United States will no longer have a white majority, but many scholars argue that the numbers are misleading, The Hill reported on Monday.

“Race is the most complicated variable in the census, and it’s the one that draws people like moths to the flame,” said Dowell Myers, a professor of policy, planning and demography at the University of Southern California.

The 2020 census shows clearly the upward progression of racial diversity by age group, with non-Hispanic whites making up 77% of the over age 75 population, 67% of the age 55-64 population, 55% of those 35-44, and barely half of those who are 18-24.

In addition, the nation’s children are only 47% non-Hispanic white, according to an analysis released last week by Brookings Institution senior fellow William Frey.

Although this data and their conclusions appear clear enough, demographers insist that it is more complicated than that, as it, for example, downplays the fact that millions of Americans no longer embrace a single racial identity.

They point out that the same projections say that by 2045, more than 18 million people will claim two or more races. Subtract them from the total, and the population of non-Hispanic white people increases from 49% to 52% of the remaining population, thus remaining the majority

This effectively means that “whites are going to be the largest group in this country for a long time,” Richard Alba, distinguished professor emeritus in sociology at the City University of New York, told The Hill. “In a sense, we’re forming a new kind of mainstream society here, which is going to be very diverse. But whites are going to be a big part of that. It’s not like they’re going to disappear and be supplanted.”

Alba argues that the census itself is “locked into a way of thinking that dates to the 20th century, and that’s the idea that people are only one thing when it comes to ethnicity and race.”

But he points out that multiracial Americans are the fastest-growing racial category in the census, a group expected to double in size by 2050.