US Census Results

 The result of America's 2020 Census has been made public.

The overall population grew by 7.4% over the last decade to reach 331 million. The rate of growth was the slowest since the 1930s.

The share of children in the U.S. declined because of falling birth rates.  The population of children under age 18 dropped from 74.2 million in 2010 to 73.1 million in 2020. 

The number of Americans who identify as white has fallen below 60% for the first time and population growth is being driven by ethnic minorities. Hispanics, Asians, people of two or more races are the only groups where underage that are growing

Just over half of the total growth was a result of the increase in the US Hispanic population, which reached 62.1 million, or 18.7% of the total in 2020, compared to 16.4% in 2010 and 12.6% in 2000.

The Asian-American population swelled by 35% to 24 million, making it the fastest-growing segment of the US population. 

The black population grew by 5.6%, though essentially held steady at 12.1% as a share of the overall US demographic.

“The U.S. population is much more multiracial and much more racially and ethnically diverse than what we have measured in the past,” said Nicholas Jones, a Census Bureau official.

 "It's going to require new ways of understanding about who's American," says New York University's Ann Morning, the author of The Nature of Race: How Scientists Think and Teach about Human Difference.

"The news that the nation's white population is shrinking, while the black and brown populations continue to grow, is likely to provoke the anti-democratic, racially-anxious contingent among state legislatures," said Marc Morial, the head of a civil rights organisation, the National Urban League.

The number of people who identified as belonging to two or more races more than tripled from 9 million people in 2010 to 33.8 million in 2020. They now account for 10% of the U.S. population.