WASHINGTON: Asian Americans grew faster than any other minority group in the US in the last decade, rising to 24 million in 2020, according to the first detailed data released from last year’s census.

The growth in the American population over the last decade was driven entirely by minority communities, according to the new data released on Thursday by the US Census Bureau.

The number of white Americans declined for the first time since the nation’s founding in 1776.

Non-Hispanic whites make up just under 58 per cent of the American population, the first time since the census was first conducted that they have fallen under the 60 per cent mark.

By contrast, the 2000 census showed non-Hispanic whites made up just over 69 per cent of the population, and 63.7 per cent in 2010.

The data revealed almost 20 million people identified as “Asian,” and another 4 million checked boxes as “Asian” combined with another race group, for a total of 7.2 per cent of the population.

Another 0.5 per cent of the population identifies as “Native Hawaiian” and “Other Pacific Islander” alone or in combination with another racial group.

The results make the Asian population the fastest-growing racial group in the United States at 35.5 per cent, NBC News said.

“The US population is much more multiracial and much more racially and ethnically diverse than we measured in the past,” said Nicholas Jones, director of race, ethnicity and outreach in the Census Bureau’s Population Division.

The overall US population grew by 7.4 per cent over the last decade to reach 331 million.

The rate of growth was the slowest since the 1930s.

Aggressive outreach in addition to the shifting demographics helped impact the group’s participation in the census, as well as overall population growth, Karthick Ramakrishnan, founder of AAPI Data, a policy and research nonprofit group, told NBC Asian America.

AAPI Data is a publisher of demographic data and policy research on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders.

PTI

Press Trust of India