Post by Admin on Sept 7, 2021 2:03:11 GMT
Some news coverage of the latest 2020 census results may have led you to think the white population in the U.S. is shrinking or in decline.
The actual story about the country's biggest racial group is more complicated than that.
And it's largely the result of a major shift in how the U.S. census asks about people's racial identities. Since 2000, the forms for the national, once-a-decade head count have allowed participants to check off more than one box when answering the race question.
While the 2020 census results show fewer people checking off only the "White" box compared with in 2010, there was an almost 316% jump in the number of U.S. residents who identified with the "White" category and one or more of the other racial groups. Their responses boosted the size of a white population that includes anyone who marked "White."
How The Size Of The U.S. White Population Changed From 2010 To 2020
Whether this population became smaller or larger over the past decade depends on how you define “white.” For the U.S. census, a person can identify as white by checking off only the “White” box (“White alone,” as the Census Bureau puts it) or marking “White” and one or more of the other racial categories (“White in combination”). According to federal standards, people who identify as Hispanic or Latino can be of any race.
Notes: Population numbers are rounded to the nearest thousand. The Census Bureau warns that comparisons between 2010 census and 2020 census race data should be made with caution because of changes to how the race question was asked, as well as how responses were categorized and processed, for the 2020 count.
The actual story about the country's biggest racial group is more complicated than that.
And it's largely the result of a major shift in how the U.S. census asks about people's racial identities. Since 2000, the forms for the national, once-a-decade head count have allowed participants to check off more than one box when answering the race question.
While the 2020 census results show fewer people checking off only the "White" box compared with in 2010, there was an almost 316% jump in the number of U.S. residents who identified with the "White" category and one or more of the other racial groups. Their responses boosted the size of a white population that includes anyone who marked "White."
How The Size Of The U.S. White Population Changed From 2010 To 2020
Whether this population became smaller or larger over the past decade depends on how you define “white.” For the U.S. census, a person can identify as white by checking off only the “White” box (“White alone,” as the Census Bureau puts it) or marking “White” and one or more of the other racial categories (“White in combination”). According to federal standards, people who identify as Hispanic or Latino can be of any race.
Notes: Population numbers are rounded to the nearest thousand. The Census Bureau warns that comparisons between 2010 census and 2020 census race data should be made with caution because of changes to how the race question was asked, as well as how responses were categorized and processed, for the 2020 count.