Census predicts decline of whites

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Hispanic and Asian populations in the United States will triple by 2050, when whites will be about half of the total U.S. population, according to projections released today by the U.S. Census Bureau.

Overall, U.S. population is projected to grow about 49 percent by mid-century, increasing from a current level of about 283 million, to 420 million.

The census projection says the white U.S. population will grow about 7 percent in absolute numbers (from 196 million to 210 million) by 2050, even as whites decline as a percentage of the total population from about 69 percent now to 50 percent at mid-century.

Meanwhile, the nation's Hispanic population will increase 194 percent, according to the census study, from a current figure of 35 million to 103 million in 2050.

Immigration has been a chief cause of growth for the U.S. Hispanic population, but arrivals from abroad are declining as the primary factor in the group's increase, census officials say. Next year, for example, Hispanic population is projected to increase by more than 1.1 million, but immigration will account for just 35 percent of that growth.

"The Hispanic increase comes mostly from a natural increase of the number of people in child-bearing years and a higher birth rate," said Greg Spencer, chief of the population projections branch at the U.S. Census Bureau.

Hispanic women during their lifetimes "have an average of three children as opposed to an average of two for other groups."

By comparison, about 60 percent of next year's 400,000-person increase in the Asian population will come through immigration, according to the census projection.

The census study also predicts:

The nation's Asian population, currently at 11 percent, will grow 213 percent to 33 million by 2050, and its share of U.S. population would increase from 4 percent to 8 percent.