Latino Population Increases 16% in 5 Years, Census Bureau Reports

The nation’s Latino population is growing much faster than the population as a whole and now accounts for one out of every 14 Americans, new Census Bureau figures showed Tuesday.

There were 16.9 million people of Spanish origin in the United States as of March, 1985, the bureau reported, up 2.3 million since the 1980 national census.

That’s a growth of about 16% in just over five years, compared to a national population increase of 3.3%, the Census Bureau said.

High Fertility Rate

“This sizable increase was the result of high fertility and the resulting large natural increase and of substantial immigration to the United States from Mexico, Cuba and other Spanish-speaking countries of Central and South America,” the bureau reported in a new study of the nation’s Latino population.

The report found that Latinos tended to be younger, less educated, members of larger families and more likely to be living in poverty than Americans in general.

But the statisticians also noted sharp variations within the Latino community itself, with Cubans statistically more like other U.S. residents than Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, Central and South Americans and other people of Latino origin.

The 16.9 million Latinos in 1985 constituted 7.2% of the population of the United States, up from 6.4% in 1980, when the census counted 14.6 million.

While earlier studies have emphasized that Latinos are concentrated in a few states rather than being distributed across the nation, the new report did not break down their numbers by state or region.

Overall, Mexicans were the nation’s largest share of Latinos with 10.3 million, far ahead of second-place Puerto Ricans, with 2.6 million. There were 1.7 million Central and South Americans, 1.4 million other Latinos and 1 million Cubans.

Both the Latino and general populations aged between 1980 and 1985, although the Spanish-origin group remained considerably younger, on average, thanks to a large number of children.

The median age of Latinos was 25.0 years in 1985, up from 23.2 years in 1980. At the same time the median age of the overall population climbed from 30.6 to 31.9 years, the report said.

Turning to education, 47.9% of Latinos aged 25 and over had completed high school, compared to 73.9% of the nation as a whole.

None of the Latino groups equaled the national median family income of $26,433.