2020 U.S. Census Results: The Changing Demographics Of Michigan

Detroit MI

17 August, 2021

9:09 AM

Description

MICHIGAN — The last 10 years have marked a dramatic shift in the demographic makeup of the United States, with a marked shrinkage of the white population and the rapid growth of the Hispanic community. These changes were reflected in Michigan where the white population fell by 4.6 percent while the Hispanic population grew by 29.3 percent, according to the 2020 census data sets released last Thursday. In 2010, according to that year's census, there were 7,444,974 people in Michigan who identified as white alone, representing 78.9 percent of the state's population. That number grew to 7,803,120 in 2020, but now represents 73.9 percent of the state's population of 10,077,331. Meanwhile, there were 564,422 people in Michigan who identified as Hispanic or Latino in 2020, up from 436,358 in 2010. Hispanics now make up 5.6 percent of the state's population, a number that was 4.4 percent a decade earlier. Michigan's Black or African American population fell slightly in the last decade. It was 1,400,362 in 2010, and dropped to 1,376,579 in 2020, a 1.7-percent decrease. People who identify as Black or African American alone now make up 13.7 percent of the state's population, compared to 14.2 percent in 2010. The number of people who identify as Asian only grew in Michigan from 2010 to 2020, going from 238,199 in 2010 to 334,300 in 2020. The latter number represents 3.3 percent of the population, while the former number represented 2.2 percent of the population. Currently, Michigan's race and diversity index is 45.2 percent. That figure shows the probability that two people chosen at random will be from different race or ethnic groups. That number was at 39.1 percent in 2010. In the U.S., the overall population grew from 308,745,538 in 2010 to 331,449,281 in 2020, which was the slowest population growth since the Great Depression, according to the Associated Press. The population in the U.S. that identified as white alone fell from 72.4 percent in 2010 to 61.6 percent in 2020. There were 223,553,265 people who identified as white alone in 2010, but 204,277,273 who did so in 2020, and 8.6-percent decrease. But the Hispanic or Latino population grew by 23 percent from 20210 to 2020, going from 50,477, 594 to 62,080,044. It now represents 18.7 percent of the total population. The Hispanic and Latino population represented 16.3 percent of the total population in 2010. The Black or African American population in the U.S. grew by 5.6 percent (from 38,929,319 to 41,104,200) between 2010 and 2020, though it now represents slightly less of the total population (12.6 percent in 2010 versus 12.4 percent in 2020). However, the Asian population in the U.S. grew in size and percentage of the total population in the last decade. In 2010, there were 14,674,252 who identified as Asian alone, which was 4.8 percent of the population. In 2020, there were 19,886,049 who identified as Asian, representing 6.0 percent of the population. Another dramatic increase from the 2010 census to the 2020 census is the number of people who consider themselves multiracial. Although these reasons are complex. Experts say the increase reflects changes in the way people identify themselves as well as the number of children born to parents of mixed races or ethnicities, along with changes in the wording of the census forms. In Michigan, there were 230,319 people who identified as multiracial in 2010, and that number went up to 635,315 in 2020. Meanwhile, in the U.S., there were 9,009,073 people who identified as multiracial in 2010, a number that jumped to 33,848,943 in 2020. "The U.S. population is much more multiracial and much more racially and ethnically diverse than what we have measured in the past," said Nicholas Jones, director and senior advisor for race and ethnicity research and outreach at the Census Bureau.