U.S. BECOMES MAJORITY MINORITY BY 2042

Newsday has apparently broken a strict embargo from the U.S. Census Bureau (a top national news organization was holding for 12:01 am but may now release). This is very news worthy info - though no shock to many of us.

The most important point is the rapid Hispanic population growth and the fact that the projections move the date of this dramatic demographic shift a full EIGHT YEARS SOONER than the last estimates.

Looks like I may need to change the name of my PR and multicultural marketing agency from The 2050 Group to The 2042 Group or maybe something safer like... well you get the point.

These demographic changes, in the coming decades, will mean enormous changes in minority political and economic/consumer strength not to mention that they could result in significant social/cultural changes. How corporations and the government reach minority communities will obviously become more important aspects of their work.

Excerpts from the Newsday report:

In a new report out Thursday, the U.S. Census Bureau projects the nation will become much more diverse by midcentury, with minorities forecast to become the majority population by 2042, experts said.

and another excerpt from the report on Newsday.com:

The Census Bureau projects that minorities, now roughly one-third of the nation's population, will become the majority by 2042, and grow to 54 percent by 2050. Hispanics are projected to nearly triple their numbers -- rising from an estimated 46.7 million today to just under 133 million by 2050, out of a projected total U.S. population of 439 million.

The black population is expected to rise from 41.1 million, or 14 percent of the nation's population today, to 65.7 million, or 15 percent by 2050. The Asian population is projected to rise from 15.5 million people now, or 5.1 percent of the U.S. population, to 40.6 million, or 9.2 percent, by 2050.

UPDATE: Drudgereport is now linking to the Newsday article as its top story.

UPDATE2: I shortened the excerpt. Anyone who reads this should go to the Newsday site to read the complete article. Perhaps others will have posted by the time you read this.

UPDATE3: Presumably four hours early, Associated Press has posted its story. Perhaps a longer version will post soon. In the meantime, here's the headlines from The Washington Post page with the AP story: "White Americans no longer a majority by 2042."

UPDATE4: CNN.com has a lengthy story on this new report and deals with the role immigration and birth rates play in the estimates.

UPDATE5: The New York Times and other national news organizations are reporting on these data this morning. I found this comment on the rapid demographic changes in the Times piece to be interesting:

“No other country has experienced such rapid racial and ethnic change,” said Mark Mather, a demographer with the Population Reference Bureau, a research organization in Washington.

UPDATE6: And this USA Today story quotes a Pew spokesperson on the impact immigration has had on these new numbers:

Jeffrey Passel, senior demographer at the Pew Hispanic Center, says the earlier projections were low because they underestimated immigration. "We've measured a much higher immigration in the '90s," he says. "In this decade, those high levels continued."