The nation’s demographics are on a clear trajectory: White people are dying faster than they are being born, which means they are on target to become a minority in the United States in 30 years.For the third year in a row, deaths of non-Hispanic whites outnumbered births, according to detailed population estimates for states and counties released Thursday by the U.S. Census Bureau.
“This is without historical precedent,” said Kenneth Johnson, the senior demographer at the University of New Hampshire’s Carsey School of Public Policy. “The minority population is growing, and the non-Hispanic white population is not.”
Whites currently account for 62 percent of the population but 78 percent of deaths, according to Johnson’s analysis.
Their median age — half are older and half younger — has hit an all-time high of 43, said William Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution. For the first time, whites are in the minority among children under the age of 5.
“Since 2010, the overall under age 20 population is declining, while working ages and especially seniors are growing,” Frey said.