Estimates released by the Census Bureau today reveal that the Latino population is increasing at a rapid rate in the United States. The Latino population is also significantly younger than the rest of the population. These demographic shifts will have a great impact in the political landscape of the US….
Foreshadowing the nation’s changing makeup, one in four American counties have passed or are approaching the tipping point where black, Hispanic and Asian children constitute a majority of the under-20 population, according to analyses of census figures released Thursday.
Racial and ethnic minorities now account for 43 percent of Americans under 20. Among people of all ages, minorities make up at least 40 percent of the population in more than one in six of the nation’s 3,141 counties.
The latest population changes by race, ethnicity and age, as of July 1, 2007, were generally marginal compared with the year before. But they confirm the breadth of the nation’s diversity, and suggest that minorities — now about a third of the population — might constitute a majority of all Americans even sooner than projected by census demographers, in 2050.
In 2000, black, Hispanic and Asian children under age 20 were at or near a majority in only about one-fifth of the counties and, over all, blacks, Hispanics and Asians accounted for 40 percent or more of the population in about one in seven counties.
You should read Dowell Myer’s recently published book, Immigrants and Boomers. Its establishes a the common link between the aging white population and the younger Latino, immigrant, population. When the white population retires, they will depend on the younger Latino population to have good jobs to pay the taxes needed to support them. So its in their interest to invest in the young Latino population now, rather than creating barriers to their incorporation into society.