Census Data Show America’s White Population Shrank for the First Time

Decennial count indicates Latinos, Asians and other racial groups drove all U.S. population growth during past decade.

The non-Hispanic white population dropped 2.6% between 2010 and 2020, a decline that puts that group’s share of the total U.S. population below 60%. The number of people who identify as more than one race or ethnicity grew at the fastest rate of any group.

The nation’s population grew just 7.4% during the decade, the second slowest on record for a decennial census. Only the 1930s—the era of the Great Depression—saw slower growth.

The new data show an overall aging of the nation’s population. Those under age 18 totaled 73.1 million, or 22.1% of the U.S. population in 2020, a 1.4% decrease from 74.2 million in 2010. The decline was partly due to lower fertility rates in recent years, the Census Bureau said.

“Population growth was almost entirely in metropolitan areas,” said Marc Perry, a senior demographer for the Census Bureau.

The cores of metro areas with more than a million people grew 9.1%, while their suburbs grew 10.3%, a Wall Street Journal analysis of the new data shows. Smaller metro areas grew 7.1%. By contrast, small towns and rural areas saw their combined populations drop 0.6%.

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