WASHINGTON – In recent years, Americans have been told that U.S. racial and ethnic diversity will be increasing to the point that by mid-century the nation will cease to have a White majority within the population.
For many, the perception of that milestone has been reached or has been nearly attained. A new survey released by the Center for American Progress (CAP) and the PolicyLink organization indicates that many Americans already believe non-Whites are the majority of the U.S. population.
With minorities currently making up 37 percent of the U.S. population, Americans on average believe that non-Whites are 49 percent of the U.S., according to the “Building an All-In Nation: A View from the American Public” survey report. Released on Tuesday, the survey notes that the tendency of respondents to overestimate the minority population demonstrates “that Americans are not in denial about the high and rising levels of diversity” in American society.
“According to the American people, we are already or almost a majority-minority nation, which is interesting,” said Dr. Ruy Teixeira, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, during a CAP forum on the survey’s release.
“What we found out is that [Americans] not only know that diversity is happening, [but] they tend to overestimate the percentage of minorities in our population by quite a bit,” noted Teixeira, one of the survey’s co-authors.
African-Americans on average estimated that non-Whites are 53 percent of the population followed by Latinos, who estimated an average of 50 percent, and then Whites, who estimated an average of 48 percent. Asian-Americans provided the most accurate estimates at 43 percent.
