The U.S. Census Bureau this week released a new population projection. It adds ten years to the last projection and puts the likely population in 2060 at 420.3 million – about 106 million more residents than today.
Slightly more than half of that increase (51.1 million) results from net international migration (new immigrants less those moving away). Today’s immigration flow is heavily Asian and Hispanic. Of about 1.1 million newly admitted immigrants in 2011, more than two-thirds were from Asian (35%) or non-English speaking countries of Latin America (33%).
The population increase in the Census Bureau projection is largely from growth in the Hispanic population (72.5% of the 2015-2060 increase) and the Asian population (16.8% of the increase). This new projection also indicates that the non-Hispanic white population will decline by 19.5 million and that that population segment will drop below 50 percent of the total population a couple of years after 2040.
This new population projection reflects a slower rate of population increase than in the last previous projection and it appears that most of the lower projection will result from the drop in the non-Hispanic white population.