Immigration has had such a strong impact on American demographics that it is helping counteract the nation’s declining birth rates, new data has revealed.
Birth rates across the US have steadily declined year-on-year, but a Census Bureau report published Thursday reveals America’s population gain last year was largest it has ever been.
The older population, adults aged 65 and above, climbed by 3.5 per cent from 2023 to 2024, figures show.
The number of youths – people under 18 – nationwide has continued to drop annually, with last year recording a decline of 0.2 per cent.
Although women are having fewer children, America’s population is growing, especially among the Hispanic, Asian and black communities – which experts largely attribute to a rise in immigration.
The Hispanic or Latino population increased by 1.9 million last year, an increase larger than that of all other race or ethnicity groups combined.
The Asian and black populations rose by 4.2 and 1 per cent, respectively. America’s white population was the only population that dropped, declining 0.1 per cent.
Census data doesn’t say whether illegal immigration contributed to these figures, although the number of people intercepted crossing the border has slumped since President Donald Trump began his second term.
‘This past year, the population gain was bigger than it’s ever been before,’ Bill Frey, a specialist in American demographics, told the Washington Post. ‘Overall, it’s because of immigration.’
The Asian population recorded the fastest growth – at 4.2 per cent or an increase of 898,113 people – in the US from 2023 and 2024.
California experienced the largest increase in its Asian population, followed by Texas.
The report notes that Texas’ annual growth rate of 6.9 per cent was ‘substantially faster’ than the recorded 2.7 per cent in California.
America’s Hispanic population, including both immigration and births, has increased by 9.7 per cent from April 2020 to July 2024.
Latinos, for the first time ever, now account for 20 per cent of the total population.
Despite this group growing the second-fastest nationwide, data shows that only nine states recorded that Hispanics accounted for one-fifth of their total population.
The white population was the only population that dropped between 2023 and 2024, declining 0.1 per cent or by 226,072 people.
Experts say the historic rise in immigration has largely contributed to population growth, as especially since the number of children being in the country is declining.
America’s older population increased from 12.4 per cent in 2004 to 18 per cent 2024, the census bureau report revealed, while the share of children declined from 25 per cent to 21.5 per cent over the same period.
The gap between the two age groups dropped from 20 million in 2020 to just under 12 million last year.
‘Children still outnumber older adults in the United States, despite a decline in births this decade,’ Lauren Bowers, chief of the bureau’s Population Estimates Branch, said.
‘However, the gap is narrowing as baby boomers continue to age into their retirement years. In fact, the number of states and counties where older adults outnumber children is on the rise, especially in sparsely populated areas.’
Trump’s administration has prioritized policies to encourage more people to have children, including tax incentives for parents, paid family leave, child subsidies, and his proposed $1,000 investment accounts for babies born during his tenure in office.
Trump, at the same time, has carried out a sweeping immigration crackdown that has removed millions of illegal migrants from the US.
Frey, whose remarks do not suggest an advocacy for illegal migration, has suggested that ‘more immigration’ could be beneficial to population growth.
‘There’s a lot of discussion about whether we should have federal programs to have women have more babies because that’s going to increase the size of the young population, but I’d like to make the case that immigration could help us have a bigger younger population or a smaller decline in the younger population,’ he told the Post.
‘It’s not all about having women have more fertility, but it also can mean we should have more immigration.’