Census Data Show America’s White Population Shrank for First Time in U.S. History

The first detailed results of the 2020 census show that the total white population shrank for the first time in the nation’s history as the U.S. diversified and continued to grow more rapidly in the South and Southwest.

The non-Hispanic white population dropped 2.6% between 2010 and 2020, a decline that puts that group’s share of the total U.S. population below 60%.

The nation’s population grew just 7.4% during the decade, the second slowest on record for a decennial census. Only the 1930s—the era of the Great Depression—recorded slower growth....