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Friday, June 24th, 2016

It’s official: Minority babies are the majority among the nation’s infants, but only just

Author:     D’Vera Cohn
Source:     Pew Research Center
Publication Date:     June 23, 2016
 Link: It’s official: Minority babies are the majority among the nation’s infants, but only just
Stephan:   Here is the latest on the trend that I think is one of the reasons an ego monster like Donald Trump is considered by Republican voters to be a viable Presidential candidate -- the transition of the United States from a majority White to a majority minority nation in which being born White will no longer confer privilege.
Credit" Pew Research Center

Credit” Pew Research Center

The U.S. is projected to have no racial or ethnic group as its majority within the next several decades, but that day apparently is already here for the nation’s youngest children, according to new Census Bureau population estimates.

The bureau’s estimates for July 1, 2015, released today, say that just over half – 50.2% – of U.S. babies younger than 1 year old were racial or ethnic minorities. In sheer numbers, there were 1,995,102 minority babies compared with 1,982,936 non-Hispanic white infants, according to the census estimates. The new estimates also indicate that this crossover occurred in 2013, so the pattern seems well established.

Pinpointing the exact year when minorities outnumbered non-Hispanic whites among newborns has been difficult. The change among newborns is part of a projected U.S. demographic shift from a majority-white nation to one with no racial or ethnic majority group that is based on long-running immigration and birth trends. But changes in short-term immigration flows and in fertility patterns can delay those long-term shifts.

In […]

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