Washington – Maybe there will be a bigger party when the population hits 400 million. Save the date: 2043.
America’s official population passed the 300 million mark Tuesday, fueled by a growing number of immigrants and their children.
The moment, recorded at 5:46 a.m. MDT, passed with little fanfare, perhaps dampened by a divisive debate over illegal immigration and the fact that many experts think the population had already hit the 300 million mark months ago.
There were no fireworks or presidential proclamations. Census Bureau employees had cake.
“It’s a couple of weeks before an election when illegal immigration is a high-profile issue, and they don’t want to make a big deal out of it,” said William Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank.
It’s been 39 years since the U.S. population reached 200 million. Since then, about 55 percent of the growth has come from immigrants, their children and their grandchildren, according to a recent report by the Pew Hispanic Center, a nonpartisan research organization.
When the population hit 200 million in 1967, more than 80 percent of Americans were white and less than 5 percent were Latino. Less than 1 percent were Asian.
Today, Latinos make up nearly 15 percent of the population and Asians about 5 percent. White non-Latinos account for about 67 percent, blacks a little more than 13 percent.
There’s a good chance the 300 millionth American walked across the border from Mexico months ago.
The Census Bureau counts the population every 10 years.
