MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Hispanics become US largest minority: 15.8% of total population

Growth rate reflects the fact that for every nine Latino births there is just one death of a Hispanic

The size of the United States Hispanic community grew by 3.1% in 2009 to 48.4 million people, or 15.8% of the total population, the largest minority in a country that is ever more diverse, the Census Bureau said Thursday.

The new data reflect how minorities continue growing, now comprising 35% of the total population.

The figures are the latest to be released before the 2010 Census data becomes available at the end of this year, information which will determine the new demographic geography of the country. This year’s census data will allow congressional representation to be adjusted and more than 400 billion US dollars in federal funds to be more fairly distributed.

Meanwhile, the new estimates reveal a country of larger and younger minorities, with Hispanics having the greatest growth rate due to their higher birth rate, rather than immigration, for instance.

Between 2008 and 2009, the nation’s Hispanic population increased by 1.44 million, a slightly smaller figure than the increase from the year before.

Even so, Hispanic represented 55% of the total growth in the U.S. population during 2009 and the larger portion of this increase, 68%, was due to births, not immigration, which has fallen off to some degree in recent years.

For the moment, non-Hispanic whites number 199.9 million, 65% of the U.S. population and 14% less than their percentage in 2000, when the country’s white non-Hispanic population was calculated to be 195.5 million.

In that year, minorities represented 17% of the total U.S. population and numbered 85.9 million people. Nine years later, minorities included 208 million people. The demographic change is explained by the number of births among minorities, above all in the Hispanic community, which is growing at a faster pace than any other minority.

The growth rates reflect the fact that for every nine Latino births there is just one death of a Hispanic, while the country’s white population is merely maintaining itself at just about a zero growth rate. These figures show that the largely white, baby boom generation is aging.

The average ages of various groups in the country are of considerable interest, with Hispanics’ average age being 27.4 years and Asians’ being 35.3 years, both relatively young, compared with the national average of 36.8 years, and an average age of 41.2 years for whites and 31.3 years for blacks.

The US youth is also becoming more diverse, as demonstrated by the fact that 48.3% of the children under age five belong to minorities, but only 19.9% of the people 65 years or older belong to those groups.

Although Hispanics constitute the country’s “big minority,” blacks’ numbers grew one percent in 2009, compared with the previous year, totalling 37.7 million people and representing 12.3% of the population.

With regard to Asians, this group was the second-fastest growing, after Hispanics, with a 2.5% growth rate, but comprising 13.7 million people, making them the US third-largest minority.

By states, New Mexico, Hawaii, California and Texas, as well as the District of Columbia, have populations where minorities, when taken together, make up the majority of residents.