Latinos, Asians to Lead Rise in U.S. Population

Latinos and Asians will account for more than half the growth in the U.S. population every year for the next half century and beyond, the Census Bureau predicted Wednesday.

Also rising fast are those over 50, a group that is growing because the huge baby boom generation is beginning to turn gray and head for the retirement years.

“If you want to sell things and go where the growth is, about half your market will be people in their 50s and the other half will be the Hispanic and Asian populations,” said Gregory Spencer, a Census Bureau demographer.

These growth patterns will produce a dramatic change in the ethnic portrait of America: The population of non-Latino whites, now three-quarters of all Americans, will shrink to a bare majority by the year 2050.

The nation’s total population, 262.8 million last July 1, will increase to 393.9 million by the year 2050, according to the Census Bureau’s forecast. Current growth is modest, less than 1% a year, the lowest rate since the Great Depression of the 1930s. It is projected to slow even more at the turn of the century and, after 2025, is expected to drop to the lowest rates ever recorded since the census began in 1790.

The basic expansion of the U.S. population will be produced by the Latino and Asian populations, which already are leading the way in changing the ethnic makeup of California.

“We just may be a few years ahead of the nation,” said Mary Heim, assistant chief of the demographic research unit for the California Department of Finance in Sacramento. “These were changes we predicted three years ago and they will happen in California sooner than the rest of the nation.” California is now 30% Latino and could have a Latino majority by 2040, according to state estimates.

U.S. population now is 73.6% white, 12% black, 10.2% Latino, 3.3% Asian, and 0.7% Native American. The official forecast issued on Wednesday predicts that in 2050, the nation will be 52.8% white, 24.5% Latino, 13.6% black, 8.2% Asian and 0.9% Native American.

“I would be willing to bet that is a conservative estimate--the white population could be less than a majority a lot sooner,” said Peter Francese, president of American Demographics magazine.

The government forecasts, revised every two years, depend on estimates of future birthrates and immigration trends. The Census Bureau expects immigration of 820,000 a year, including about 225,000 illegal immigrants.

The Latino population is now growing at the rate of 900,000 a year, including net immigration of 350,000. The category of Asian and Pacific Islanders is increasing at 380,000 a year, including 235,000 immigrants.

Even without immigration, the Latino population would be growing faster than the white non-Latino population because it is younger and has a higher fertility rate. Latinos will become the nation’s largest minority group in 2009, the Census Bureau predicts, surpassing the number of blacks.

New entrants into the U.S. work force will increasingly be members of minority groups. The median age--half the members are older and half younger--is 35.3 for whites, 30.6 for Asians, 29.2 for blacks, and 26.3 for Latinos.

The nation will be heavily dependent on workers who are members of minority groups “for the productivity and labor skills and the political willingness to pay taxes to support an aging population that will be largely white,” said Fernando Torres-Gil, assistant secretary for aging in the Department of Health and Human Services. “We have to be willing to invest in these groups, as we invested in people after World War II with education, training and good roads,” he said. “Maybe we need a new GI bill for this segment of the population.”

But the spending will not be possible, he said, without the approval of the aging white population. “It will be up to senior citizens, with their tremendous political clout, to protect their benefits like Medicare and Social Security and also invest in a new diverse, younger population,” he said.

Education “will be the really important flash point,” predicted Robert Manning, assistant professor of sociology at American University in Washington. Aging white voters, their children already grown, will be reluctant to support school bond issues, he said. “They fear their own social safety net is contracting” as they worry about health and retirement costs, he said.

The retired population, those 65 and over, will grow very slowly for the next 15 years because there was a baby bust in the 1930s, the decade of economic depression and very low birthrates. An enormous surge will start in the year 2010, when the first of the hordes of baby boomers--the 76 million persons born in the years 1946 through 1965--reach 65.

The “Florida-zation” of the United States will be fully complete by 2030, Torres-Gil said. About 20% of Americans will be over 65 then, compared with 13% now.

The biggest expansion of Latino and Asian populations will take place in the handful of states that draws the most immigrants: California, Texas, New York, Florida, Illinois and New Jersey. But there is now a spillover effect, with immigrant communities growing rapidly in such places as Atlanta, Minneapolis and Washington state, said Jeffrey Passel, director of the Urban Institute’s program for research on immigration policy.

California’s population is currently 52.5% white, 29.8% Latino, 10.7% Asian and 6.9% black, according to the Finance Department. The most recent state forecast, issued in 1993, goes to 2040 and estimates a California population that will be 49.7% Latino, 32.4% white, 11.8% Asian and 5.9% black.

Los Angeles County is now 43.5% Latino, 35.1% white, 9.9% black and 11.4% Asian, according to state figures. The 2040 forecast calls for a population of 69.1% Latino, 13.8% white, 6% black and 10.9% Asian.

Orange County is 61.8% white, 26.1% Latino, 1.6% black and 10.5% Asian. Projections call for a 2040 population of 47.4% Latino, 40.6% white, 10.4% Asian and 1.5% black.

California is expected to issue a new set of population forecasts next year.