US 2020 Census shows decline in white population: Here are key takeaways from the report

The United States Census Bureau has released the 2020 Census, a detailed report on how the country has changed since 2010.

The census report shows an increase in the population of US metro areas and highlights a significant change in the nation's diversity —how people identify their race and ethnicity in the past decade. The findings will act as a crucial point while redrawing the nation's political maps and the results are essential to determine the allocation of billions of dollars in federal funding.

"We are excited to reach this milestone of delivering the first detailed statistics from the 2020 Census," said acting Census Bureau Director Ron Jarmin. "We appreciate the public’s patience as Census Bureau staff worked diligently to process these data and ensure it meets our quality standards," he added.

Here are the key takeaways from the 2020 census statistics:

A decline in 'White' population for the first time

As per the latest census, the number of US residents who identify themselves as 'White' has fallen for the first time as it decreased by 8.6 per cent between 2010 and 2020. This is a first since the earliest such data was taken in 1790. However, the 'White' population remained the largest race or ethnicity group in the United States, with 204.3 million people identifying as 'White' alone. A decade earlier people identifying as 'White' comprised 72.4 per cent.

"As the country has grown, we have continued to evolve in how we measure the race and ethnicity of the people who live here," said Jones.

A jump in the Asian-American population

The data shows United States as an increasingly diverse country as the people who identify themselves as multiracial, Hispanic and Asian drovemuch of the population growth between 2010 and 2020.

The Asian-American population jumped 35.5 per cent to include 20 million people (six per cent of the US population). As per the statistics, the American Indian and Alaska Native alone or in the combination group (9.7 million), and the Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander alone or in the combination group (1.6 million).

Growth in the adult population

As per the 2020 Census, the adult (age 18 and older) population group grew 10.1% to 258.3 million people over the decade.However, the population of children under age 18 dropped from 74.2 million in 2010 to 73.1 million in 2020, a 1.4% decrease.

"More than three-quarters, 77.9%, of the US population were age 18 and over," said Andrew Roberts, chief of the Sex and Age Statistics Branch in the Census Bureau's Population Division.

"The adult population grew faster than the nation as a whole. By comparison, the population under age 18 was 73.1 million in 2020, a decline of 1.4% from the 2010 Census," he added.

Urbanisation: Size and distribution of the population

The data also sheds light on changes in the size and distribution of the population across the United States. One of the major findings are the fastest-growing cities across the US are in suburban areas.

The population of U.S. metro areas grew by 9% from 2010 to 2020. The largest county in the US in 2020 remains Los Angeles County with over 10 million people and the largest city (incorporated place) in the United States in 2020 remains New York with 8.8 million people.

The Villages, a retirement community in Florida, is the fastest-growing metro area in the country, the census said.

(with inputs from agencies)