In 2020, 1 in 7 People in U.S. May Be Foreign-Born

Source: New York Times

If present trends continue, within two decades the proportion of immigrants in the United States will surpass the peak reached more than a century ago, a new analysis concludes.

The Pew Research Center, a nonpartisan research group, estimates that sometime between 2020 and 2025, the foreign-born will account for 15 percent of the American population, or more than 1 in 7 residents. They represented about 12 percent of the population in 2005, 14.7 percent in 1910 and about 15 percent in the late 19th century.

Trends farther ahead are typically harder to predict. Still, the Pew Center projects that in 2050, 19 percent of Americans will be foreign-born; that the share of Hispanic residents will more than double to 29 percent from 14 percent in 2005; and that the proportion of Asians will almost double, from 5 percent to 9 percent.

The center estimates that the total population will grow to 438 million in 2050, with immigrants accounting for 82 percent, or 117 million, of the increase. But because births in the United States to Hispanic and Asian immigrant parents will play a progressively greater role in population growth, according to the analysis, by 2050 a smaller proportion of both groups will be foreign born in than is the case today.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/11/us/11cnd-immig.html?_r=1&ref=us&oref=slogin

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Diversifying the population is great. The 438 million people by 2050 was a bit of a shock though.

That is rude...

Thank you.

As for the subject of the OP, wasn't it a lot MORE during the turn of the last century during that wave of imimigration?

In Hawaii, where I'm from, EVERYONE is a "minority" and it was GREAT...

It's really unusual to see so many persons of the SAME race hanging out and married to each other...with absolutely NO ONE of any other race in the "group"...

I find it disconcerting to say the least...

If the future of America in general is that we start to look like Hawaii, that will be a GOOD thing...

It would be great to listen to all those tiny little racist brains exploding all over the country. :D

We are a nation of immigrants. :hi:

Although I was born in Virginia, both my daughters, who are now
living in New York state, were born in Germany.

We're going to lose millions in coastal flooding, midwest famine, and western drought. Population will be the least of our problems by 2050.

most of my friends from other countries are amazed at how apathetic so many Americans tend to be - maybe we need some new blood.

Lots of young workers to fund our social security! Fresh new cultural inputs to revitalize our culture!

of some people. What is the positive economic impact? crunch that Mr/Mrs Pew Center!

Snip here:

Because the vast wave of baby boomers will be joining the ranks of the elderly, the number of young and elderly compared to the number of working people — the so-called dependency ratio — would rise to 72 per 100 in 2050, compared with 59 per 100 in 2005. The ratio would be even higher in the future, according to the projections, if the rate of immigration slows.

Social security won't do for us what it is doing with our parents, if it isn't ended. Medicare will be incredibly expensive. Food and energy will be incredibly expensive.

There will be more elderly looking for employment than there are jobs for them.

I believe that the ratio of working people to full retirees will not be nearly as bad as some now think because there will be so little help available for the many who would otherwise retire.

already there are more older folks looking for jobs than there are jobs that can support the older person, age discrimination is hitting people in their 50s very hard

the last thing we need to do is have a wave of hysteria calling out for foreigners to come and take the jobs we do have

pensions are gone, and social security isn't enough to cover the high cost of food and fuel, and many people now don't retire with paid off homes so they have rent or mortgage too, an expense that many homeowners of my parents' generation don't have in their retirement years

as you say -- the ratio of working people to full retirees will not be nearly as bad as some now think because there will be so little help available for the many who would otherwise retire. the outcry about greedy geezers is a GOP meme and it disgusts me to see posters repeating it here, they're repeating a talking point of the GOP social security grabbers

I was out of the workplace for awhile because of a personal problem brought on by a friends stalker live-in boyfriend breaking into my house and threatening me. The girlfriend (who was also a colleague) had asked me what to do about him because he was treating her terribly and taking her hard-earned money hand over fist while he worked a menial job 17 hours a week. I finally told her that she had to get rid of him, and she told him enough of what I had said that he viewed me as a threat. When the organic matter hit the fan, she sided with him and lied about me to our employer. I ended up losing my job. It was a real mess, and it took me years of counseling and tens of thousands of dollars to get back on my feet.

Now I'm trying to get back into the permanent workforce and no one will touch me even though I have excellent educational credentials and some good work experience.

Part of the problem is that employers are looking for that special person who will be promotable and will still around for 20 years! Those days are gone, obviously, but employers in my field still hire on that model.

I'll probably be doing menial work in my field until I'm at least 75. I plan on working full time until 70, and delaying taking social security until then because then I'll get a larger slice of the pie until I die, and I'm from a long-lived family. I imagine that others will come up with the same plan if their health holds out.

Thanks for noticing my post. It's good to feel heard, and there's not a lot of that going on here at DU.

I've worked with the Jeff Passel, who is the author of most of Pew's reports on this topic, and they're pretty serious scholarly types, with relatively little political bias. Now if you see the Center for Immigration Studies cited, or their contract hatchet man, "economist" George Borjas, or the Federation for American Immigration Reform, then you can safely assume that their numbers are grossly warped, distorted, and irreproducable by any reputable scholar, for the purposes of scaring people into suppoting harsh anti-immigrant measures. But Pew's basically okay.

I'm horrified. Something must be done to stop this trend. How can someone who wasn't born here be a real American and really understand this country's history and ideals? There are too damned many immigrants in America!

Oh, wait. I wasn't born here. Nevvver mind.

What really is disturbing, though, is that total population figure. Are we ever going to get overall population growth under control in this country?

I imagine potable water access could be a real issue in some regions by that point.

I could just be overreacting due to the current water shortages caused by poor growth planning though.

Source: Yahoo/AFP

Mon Feb 11, 11:50 AM ET

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Immigration will drive the population of the United States sharply upward between now and 2050, and will push whites into a minority, projections by the Pew Research Center showed Monday.

"If current trends continue, the population of the United States will rise to 438 million in 2050, from 296 million in 2005," an increase of nearly 50 percent, the study by the Washington-based think-tank said.

More than 80 percent of the increase will be due to immigrants arriving in the country and their US-born children, who will make up nearly one in five Americans by 2050 compared with one in eight in 2005, it said.

Whites, who currently make up around two-thirds of the US population, will become a minority (47 percent) by 2050, the report said.

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080211/ts_alt_afp/uspopulationimmigrationethnic

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Given the way white people have been running the country in recent years, this can only be good news.

Build a fence! Build a fence!:sarcasm:

I think that to be a minority you have to be less than at least one other group. While whites may dip below 50%, the other half of teh country is made up by adding the other groups together. So yes, in a racist mind that lumps people into two groups White vs non-white. White folks may become a "minority."

Whites are the most racist people on this Earth.

Most American whites are at least aware of their own racist tendencies, and trying to do better. I've encountered rampant, unabashed racism in plenty of other, non-white cultures that makes all but the most extreme forms of home-grown racism seem polite in comparison.

There have been a great many studies on this topic and, unfortunately, their findings tend to bear out that racism is fairly common amongst immigrant populations as they themselves are so often the subjects of racism. Immigrant populations rapidly perceive that racism is normal, in addition to which, they often perceive themselves to occupy the lower strata of society and many long to feel that there is at least someone lower on the socioeconomic totem pole than they are, that they don't constitute the absolute bottom of the food chain. That desire commonly manifests itself in terms of racism towards other groups of immigrants more newly arrived and less established than they are.

nt

nt

And I am not confident about that right now. Maybe in November......

When Hispanic is really just an ethnicity that includes people who define themselves (and appear) as "White," mixed (some combination of white/black/Native American), or Black (i.e., Dominicans).

One researcher who broke down Hispanics into racial components (a flawed measure as is) found that the U.S. would likely remain about 60% "White".

btw, whites are already a minority in California. :rofl:

Let's all scare the Repubs, the ones afraid of immigrants, even more! :eyes:

so their point is...?????

although I would actually peg that 1% considerably higher :rofl:

yeah, that percentage is at LEAST 29% (the amount still giving Bush a positive approval rating).

My cousin is an elected official for the Chippewa tribe. She was having a meeting with Bill Clinton once about NATIVE issues. Clinton admitted that since Indians made up less than 1% of the US population giving any attention to their issues was a hard sell in Washington. :-(

has nothing to do with "diversifying" the country and everything to do with economics. Does a large foriegn born population really make us more diverse? I guess if you think that different skin color = diversity. If the vast majority of immigrants are all relatively well-off professionals, does that decrease our socio-economic diversity?

I guess I just don't understand why "diversity" is so great all the time. There are many parts of Europe that are incredibly homogonous, they seem to be doing fine. There are also many parts of the world with very diverse populations that are not doing too well.

Personally, I don't think diversity (as it is often defined) helps or hurts us as a country, and I can't understand why some people think it does. If you have any reasons please tell me, I just can't think of any myself. Most of the things I've seen done in the name of diversity never have the intended results and seem to create a superficial view of society.

narrowly defining what were European immigrants of the 18th and 19th centuries by the color of their skin. They were English, Irish, Finnish, Germans, Pols, Czechs, Italian, etc. Each spoke their own language and did not allow their children to marry outside their faith and national ethnicity well into the 20th century. Diverse populations are the norm contrary to your supposition.

My family and the families of many of my friends whose families were here in the 19th century don't support your statement. Marriage patterns were more variable than you seem to claim. Young people in love don't always listen to their parents, you know.

First that many of the immigrants will NOT go back home. That is NOT the historical norm, in both the late 1800 early 1900 immigration and today's immigration you have huge number of immigrants moving BACK to their home country after working here for many years. I do NOT have the statistics in front of me, this may be as high as 1/2 of the immigrants (Some estimates are higher). Even in the Colonial period we had huge number of people moving back to the old country (Through most were visits to settle things back home as opposed to permanent moves). My point is this 1 in 7 rate assumes that almost all of today's immigrants STAY in the US. There are indications that is NOT what going to happen, many will stay, but many (if not most) will go back.

Second, the number also reflects that start of the die-off of the post WWII baby boomer's. This will reduce the number of native-born americans, but like previous baby-boom related population trend, temporary and transitional )i.e. already fixed, but once over numbers will return to more normal numbers).

Third assumption is that people will continue to immigrant at the rate they have been. This is NOT expected. What is expected is a drop in immigrations as the areas where immigrants are immigrating from change. Mexico and Central America is already changing, most immigrants from these areas are moving to do the drop in the price of Corn since the Adoption of NAFTA. Now, with gasohol pushing the price of Corn UP, the "Push" to migrant will slowly disappear and with it the push to work in the US (Mexico's oil production dropping may also affect this, first by Bankrupting Mexico but then by increasing the cost to migrant and increase the price of Corn.

China and India are expected to come more and more equal to the US, reducing the push to migrate from China and India (and other Asiatic lands). Further reducing the number of immigrants.

Notice none of these assumption have anything to do with US regulations on immigration, which I do not expect. Immigration restriction will become more and more a political issue, but business has always wanted immigration to keep labor costs down and will oppose any restrictions. In fact I can see Business demanding Government "help" immigration to help business (i.e. business will want cheaper labor).

Thus I do NOT see immigration getting as high as it was in the early 1900s, furthermore we may see a net outflow if the economy gets to bad given the housing bubble and the raising price of Gasoline.

with Bush in power.

I'm not wasting my life paying off the wealthy's debt.

after a while it will start erase what it is to be American.

what's different about america is our wilderness, which will be utterly destroyed as the last acquifer is drained and the last tree cut down

i wish people got out more and had a good look at what over populated countries look like, because it ain't pretty and that's what they are wishing for their children and grand children

people don't think their borders or their frontiers are worth protecting, yet they somehow imagine that a stranger will take better care of it? no, if they who were born here don't care enough, neither will the outsider who comes only for profit

We have reached a point where we can't really take anyone who wants in.

All the hot air that emanates from the RW hate machine every time something like this comes up is a significant contributor to global climate change. :P

So are my brothers, and so is my wife.

Since Hispanics, who will be the bulk of that foreign-born group, overwhelmingly support Democrats.

lol