White Americans No Longer Majority By 2042

Can someone please explain the math behind this, because I see whites as still being the majority.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- White people will no longer make up a majority of Americans by 2042, according to new government projections. That's eight years sooner than previous estimates, made in 2004.

The nation has been growing more diverse for decades, but the process has sped up through immigration and higher birth rates among minority residents, especially Hispanics.

It is also growing older.

"The white population is older and very much centered around the aging baby boomers who are well past their high fertility years," said William Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank. "The future of America is epitomized by the young people today. They are basically the melting pot we are going to see in the future."

The Census Bureau Thursday released population projections through 2050, based on rates for births, deaths and immigration. They are subject to big revisions, depending on immigration policy, cultural changes and natural or manmade disasters.

The U.S. has nearly 305 million people today. The population is projected to hit 400 million in 2039 and 439 million in 2050.

That's like adding all the people from France and Britain, said Steve A. Camarota, director of research at the Center for Immigration Studies, a Washington group that advocates tighter immigration policies.

White non-Hispanics make up about two-thirds of the population, but only 55 percent of those younger than 5.

By 2050, whites will make up 46 percent of the population and blacks will make up 15 percent, a relatively small increase from today. Hispanics, who make up about 15 percent of the population today, will account for 30 percent in 2050, according to the new projections.

Asians, which make up about 5 percent of the population, are projected to increase to 9 percent by 2050.

The population 85 and older is projected to more than triple by 2050, to 19 million.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

Maybe they mean by majority more than 50 percent.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

But at 46% whites are still the majority.
So majority means more than 50%?

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

I think they have "whites" as one category and all other ethnicities as the other. 2 groups, whites and non-whites. Since there the projection puts the number of whites at 46%, they are the minority based on how they have grouped things.

 

Majority explicitly means more than 50%. If no group is over 50%, there is no majority.

The biggest of all groups is a plurality.

 

By putting all coloured people in one group.

 

How does that make sense?! Why does it have to be over 50%? What math rule is that?

 

Two is more than one?

 

1.5 is more than 1

 

And 54 is more than 46. Assuming two groups, >50% constitutes a majority

 

But I wasn't understanding this was 2 groups. I read this to shown 4 groups with whites having the majority at 46%

 

It is not a math rule. It seems to be a convention.

 

That is not a majority, it is the largest group. Over 50% is majority.

 

Because the word is defined to mean "at least one more than half". There isn't a math rule that defines majority any differently.

 

I so want to kick certain math teachers butts. This is NOT what I was taught. Majority plain and simple meant more.

 

What I am interested in why this is even an issue for measurement. Can you imagine if the Indian newspapers say Brahmins to be a minority in 2020? Or in Rwanda if they said - too many Hutus? Or if the American newspapers say: Jewish population rising more rapidly compared to Christians?

 

What do you mean? The article said 47% wasn't a majority and that's the mathematical issue I was having.
Dammit, I deal with math every day and I didn't comprehend this. $%^#@

 

I hope we are not talking in circles:
majority means more than half.

If you have a majority of the shares in a company you cannot be outvoted on an issue even if all the other shareholders gang up.

 

Orleander, in 2050, whites will still form the plurality of the population, but not the majority of the population. Majority means more than half. Plurality means the largest part (but less than half).

 

And it is an important distinction in politics precisely for reasons like this. You can be the largest group and not win on a vote. So the article triggers unconscious terror. "What if they all gang up on us and vote against us and take revenge." And I think it is also meant to tap into fears on the part of whites and perhaps other groups that America is no longer America, since America is supposed to be majority white. Ah, well....