Whites No Longer Majority by 2043

By 2043, white people will cease to be the majority in the US, Census data suggests; at that point, there will be no single ethnic majority. That's actually a year later than had been predicted, the New York Times notes. With a still-higher birthrate among minorities than among whites, we can expect non-whites to account for 57% of the population by 2060, Reuters reports. "The US will become a plurality nation, where the non-Hispanic white population remains the largest single group, but no group is in the majority," says the Census Bureau's acting director.

Indeed, when this decade ends, notes the Times, there will be no majority ethnic group among the under-18 set. As it stands, racial minorities make up 37% of the US. Meanwhile, as a nation, we're getting older: The number of people over 65 will more than double by 2060, reaching 92 million (accounting for one in five Americans), while the number of people 85 and older will more than triple, hitting 18.2 million. The figures herald a coming divide in the population between younger, more diverse generations and older whites, a Pew researcher notes. (More US Census stories.)