US ‘white’ population drops 8.6pc in a decade

The number of US residents who identify as "white" has fallen for the first time, according to the latest 2020 census data released Thursday.

The United States has grown "more racially and ethnically diverse" and more urban over the past 10 years, according to the Census Bureau.  The "white" population decreased by 8.6 percent between 2010 and 2020, a first since the earliest such data was taken in 1790.

It remains the largest group in the country, last year representing 204 million residents, or 61.6 percent of the population. A decade earlier people identifying as white comprised 72.4 percent. African Americans represent some 12.4 percent of the population (41 million people), a percentage that remained stable over the past 10 years.

The Asian-American population meanwhile jumped 35.5 percent to include 20 million people (six percent of the US population).  Native Americans comprise 1.1 percent of the population. The number of people identifying as Hispanic -- specified as an ethnicity, not a race, on the questionnaire -- soared 23 percent, accounting for 62 million US residents, or 18 percent of the total population.

Census results are essential to determining the distribution of electoral representation across all 50 US states, along with the allocation of billions of dollars in federal funding, especially for schools and hospitals.