2020 Census Update Transcript: New Population Data

Michael C. Cook Sr.: (00:00)
Certain data from the 2020 census to the states. I am Michael Cook, Chief of the Public Information Office, and I was serve as moderator for today’s program. Today, you’ll hear from Acting Director, Dr. Ron Jarmin, Chief of the Redistributing and Voting Rights Data Office, James Whitehorne, Senior Demographer in our Population Division, Mark Perry. And the Census Bureau’s Race and Ethnicity Research [inaudible 00:00:27] Director, Nicholas Jones. We will now begin with our first speaker, James Whitehorne. James?

James Whitehorne: (00:36)
Thank you, Michael. Hello everyone. I’m James Whitehorne, Chief of the Census Redistricting and Voting Rights Data Office. Today, we have the special task of publishing the 2020 Census P.L 94-171 redistricting summary file data that states may choose to use and redrawing their state, legislative and congressional districts. These data provide the first look at the demographic characteristics of the nation by state, county, city, down to the individual census block, and show how our population has changed since the 2010 Census. Today’s release includes statistics on race and ethnicity, voting age population, occupied and vacant housing units, and people living in group quarters like nursing homes, prisons, military barracks, and college dormitories. We are releasing today’s redistricting data on our public file transfer protocol or FTP site. Today’s data release is the same format we’ve used since the 2000 Census for data users. This format requires some additional software and work to extract the data.

James Whitehorne: (01:44)
We are providing a number of supporting materials on our redistricting data program webpage to help users work with this format of data. To help the public more easily explore the numbers, we’re also providing an analysis and highlights of what we’re seeing in the data, along with data visualization tools and a 2020 Census data map. We hope you go to census.gov to further explore the data for your community. By September of this year, we’ll released the data in an easier to use format for all data users, through our data.census.gov platform. Additionally, we will provide designated state officials a toolkit in the form of DVDs and flash drives to help them more easily review and extract the data. Thank you, and now I’d like to pass it over to Dr. Ron Jarmin.

Dr. Ron S. Jarmin: (02:32)
Thanks James. Hello everyone, I’m Ron Jarmin, Acting Director at the US Census Bureau. It is my honor to represent all the hardworking staff at the Census Bureau who spent countless hours working to count everyone in the 2020 Census. In April, we released the apportionment results from the 2020 Census, which showed that the total population in the US was 331.4 million, and determined each state share of the 435 seats in the US House of Representatives. Since then, we’ve had teams working nonstop on the next set of 2020 census data; the redistricting data. We officially call this release the 2020 Census Redistricting Data P.L 94-171 summary file. These data play an important role in our democracy and also begin to eliminate how the local and demographic makeup of our nation has changed over the last decade.

As we discussed before, the COVID-19 pandemic significantly delayed our schedule for collecting and processing the data for the 2020 Census. We have understood the urgency to provide these redistricting data to the states, some of which have tight deadlines. And so to provide some relief and to provide these critical data to all 50 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, as soon as possible. We’re providing the exact same data in two releases. The first release is happening today, but there’ll be a second release in September that’ll be easier to access and to use. We will continue to release 2020 census data in 2022 and beyond.

I’d like to say a few words about data quality, something which we know there’s keen interest, given the challenges presented in 2020. We have produced the reliable and usable statistics that we ended up in public expect. While no census is perfect, we are confident that today’s redistricting results meet our high data quality standards. It is too early to speculate on under counts or over counts for any specific demographic group, and we look forward to the release of the post enumeration survey results in 2022, which will provide information on coverage of demographic groups in the 2020 Census. Overall, the 2020 Census results for Hispanic origin, age 18 and over, housing units and group quarters are in line with our population benchmarks. Soon, we will released additional operational quality metrics to give further insight into how we collected 2020 Census responses and what that might mean for the quality of the data. Throughout data processing, we’ve been comparing the counts to benchmarks as part of our quality checks on the data, and we have conducted one of the most comprehensive reviews and recent census history. The data we are releasing today meet our high data quality standards.

Finally, I’d like to take a moment to discuss the confidentiality of our statistics. When we collected data for the 2020 Census from households across the nation, we assured them that their responses would be kept confidential, as required by law. Because the redistricting data have rich demographic characteristics available for very small areas, such as census blocks, it is essential that we take steps to protect the confidentiality of individuals in our published statistics. The redistricting data summary files will be the first 2020 Census data protected using differential privacy. This sophisticated framework is the foundation of our disclosure avoidance system, and protects individual information, while letting us share important statistics about communities. We’ve used this method successfully in several other census data products. Just as with protections we used in the past, differential privacy protects personal information by adding noise or fuzziness to the data. This noise is carefully calibrated, following numerous consultations with stakeholders to protect the data at the most granular level, but ensure accuracy across larger geographies and groups.

Results from the 2020 Census will be used for the next 10 years to shape the future of our country. Local leaders can use this data to make decisions such as where to build roads and hospitals, and how to help our nation recover from the pandemic. These results will also help inform how hundreds of billions of dollars in federal funds will be distributed each year, nationwide. The data we are releasing today, meet our high data quality standards, and I’m proud to present them to the American public. I will now turn it over to Mark Perry, Senior Demographer in our Population Division, to begin announcing some of the results of the redistricting data. Thank you.

Mark Perry: (07:06)
Thanks Ron. Good afternoon. I’m Mark Perry, a Senior Demographer in the Population Division at the Census Bureau. I’ll be reviewing some of the broader findings for the total population this decade, the distribution of the population, as well as patterns of population increase and decrease between 2010 and 2020, from the national level, to states, counties, metropolitan and micropolitan areas, and for the largest cities. As we saw with the release of the first 2020 census data several months ago, the total population of the United States on April 1st, 2020 was 331.4 million, an increase of 22.7 million from 2010. This graph shows population change for the United States by decade for the past century, the bars show the numeric change in population by decade. The black line shows the percentage change by decade. Since the 1950s, percentage increases have generally been declining each decade, this past decade 7.4% increase was lower than the previous decade’s 9.7% increase, and was in fact the second lowest percent increase ever. Only the 1930s had slower growth.

Mark Perry: (08:23)
This slowdown in growth is evident if you look at population change at the state level for the past three decades. This slide and the next two slides will show how state populations have changed for the past three decades. Here, we see a map of population change for the states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico for the decade, 1990 to 2000. The four census regions are also outlined on the map. Those areas in the darkest shade had growth of 10% more for the decade. Those in the lightest shade had growth of zero to 4.9%. areas shaded in orange head population decline. The country grew by a relatively robust 13.2% in the 1990s. All 50 states increased in population that decade, as did Puerto Rico, only the District of Columbia lost population during the 1990s. States growing by 10% or more of that decade were almost all in the South or west.

Mark Perry: (09:27)
Here, we see the equivalent map for 2000 to 2010, with the same categories. From 2000 to 2010, the fastest growing states were located in either the west or the South. During this decade 49 states and the District of Columbia grew with Michigan and Puerto Rico declining in population. We see fewer states growing by 10% or more, and no states in the Northeast or Midwest growing that rapidly. We also see more states in the zero to 4.9% category. And finally, here’s the map for 2010 to 2020. The slowdown in population growth this past decade is evident. There are fewer states in the highest growth category, more states growing slowly, and three states; West Virginia, Mississippi and Illinois, along with Puerto Rico declined in population. Most states in the west continued to be in the fastest growth category, but this is no longer true in the South. In that region, only five states and the District of Columbia we’re in the fastest growing category, whereas six states in the South had moderate growth, three we’re in the slowest growth, and two had population decline. In all three decades, the fastest growing states have tended to be in the South or west, with generally slower growth for states in the Northeast and Midwest. A notable exception is North Dakota, this past decade, which was a 15.8%, and one of the fastest growing states. I’ll replay the three decades again so that you can see the changes over time.

Mark Perry: (11:04)
Now let’s look at counties, we’ll start with this map showing population density for counties in the 2020 Census. The counties shaded darkest on this map have population densities of 1000 or more people per square mile. Those in the lightest shade have densities of less than 50 persons per square mile. This map is a reminder that the US population continues to be very unevenly distributed across the land area, with high population densities on the Northeast corridor from Boston to Washington DC, in large metropolitan areas nationwide, and in parts of Puerto Rico. Low population densities are common in the Western half of the country, and in Alaska.

Mark Perry: (11:53)
This next set of maps will look at population change by decade for counties in the United States and Puerto Rico. With the redistricting data released today, we see that the slowdown in growth over the past three decades is even more pronounced at the county level than for states. I’ll show maps for the last three decades, all with the same classes, so you can easily see how patterns have changed over time. This first map shows percent change in population between 1990 and 2000 for counties. Those counties shaded in dark green grew by 20% or more, which was well above the 13.2% increase nationally for that decade. Those counties shaded orange, on the other hand, had population decline. In the 1990s, most counties had population growth, and many were in the 20% or more category. There were a number of counties that lost population that decade. Most counties declining in population were located in the Great Plains region of the country’s midsection, along with parts of Appalachia, interior parts of the Northeast, and the Mississippi Delta.

Mark Perry: (13:06)
Moving ahead to the 2000 to 2010 decade, population decline, those counties shaded in orange, became somewhat more extensive. And whereas growth in the 1990s was often widespread across regions, in the 2000 to 2010 decade, we start to see growth mainly occurring in Metro areas. Most of the counties growing by 20% or more of that decade were in the South or west, and often were the outer counties of moderately or fast growing metropolitan areas such as Atlanta, Dallas, Fort Worth, or Minneapolis St. Paul.

Mark Perry: (13:42)
We now turn to the 2010 to 2020 decade. Population decline is even more widespread this decade, with 52% of all counties having smaller populations in 2020 than in 2010. Metro areas are even more prominent this decade, as the locations of population growth amidst otherwise widespread population decline. Texas is a good example of this, where parts of the Houston, San Antonio, Austin, Dallas, Fort Worth, Midland and Odessa Metro areas had population growth, whereas many of the states other counties had population declines. Rapid growth also occurred in parts of Western North Dakota. McKenzie County, North Dakota was the country’s fastest growing county this decade, increasing a whopping 131% between 2010 and 2020. Nearby Williams County, North Dakota grew by 83%. I’ll replay the three decades again, so that you can see the changes over time.

Mark Perry: (14:51)
When we look more closely at the patterns of population increase and decrease for counties this past decade, we see a strong relationship to population size, with small counties tending to lose population, and more populous counties tending to gain people. This bar chart shows it in more detail. The graphic shows percent change in population this past decade by county population size in 2010. The four smallest size categories, all experienced population decline this decade. Counties with populations under 1000 in 2010, for example, lost 4.4% of their population during the decade. Counties with one to 5,000 people, five to 10,000 people, and 10 to 50,000 people also lost people this decade, on average. Only two categories of counties showed growth; counties with between 50 and 100,000 people grew by 4.1%, while counties with 100,000 or more people grew by 9.1%.

Mark Perry: (15:51)
Now let’s look at population change over time for metropolitan areas. Metro areas are collections of one or more counties that have an urban core of at least 50,000 people, and adjacent territory with close economic and social ties to that core. During the 1990s, some of the fastest growing Metro areas were in the South, and the interior west, while some Metro areas in Upstate New York, Western Pennsylvania, and parts of the Midwest lost population.

Mark Perry: (16:27)
And here we see the pattern for 2000 to 2010. Compared to the prior decade, fewer Metro areas grew by 20% or more, and more Metro areas declined in population. Most Metro areas in Puerto Rico lost population that decade.

Mark Perry: (16:45)
And here’s the map for 2010 to 2020. We see even fewer Metro areas with growth of 20% or more, and more Metro areas declining in population. Indeed, metro areas with population decline are now found in all four regions, and many states have metro-

Mark Perry: (17:03)
And are now found in all four regions. And many states have Metro areas with population gains, as well as those with population declines. All of the Metro and micro areas in Puerto Rico lost population this decade. The Villages Florida was the country’s fastest growing Metro area this decade, up 39% from 2010. I’ll replay the three decades again, so you can see the changes over time. As a result of the patterns of population change seen in the prior maps, the country’s population is increasingly metropolitan. This graphic shows the shares of the US population in core-based statistical areas, the collective term for Metro and micro areas, as well as outside CVSA. That is, population not in a Metro or micro area. In 2080, 84.3% of the US population was in a Metro area. That’s the light green section of the graphic on the left. By 2020, the proportion of the U S population in Metro areas increased to 86.3%, while it decreased in both micro areas and in areas outside of Metro and micro areas.

Mark Perry: (18:20)
Finally, let’s look briefly at some 2020 census results for cities. This table shows the 10 largest cities in 2020 and their populations and population change for the past two decades. The 10 largest cities all grew this past decade and eight of the 10 grew at a faster rate this decade compared to the last. The fastest growing of these large cities was Phoenix, whose population increased by 11.2% this decade. The 10 largest cities in 2020 are the same group as in 2010, but the rankings changed slightly. Phoenix moved up from six to fifth largest city and traded spots with Philadelphia, which moved down from fifth to sixth. For the first time ever in a decennial census, all 10 of the largest cities in the United States now have more than 1 million people.

Mark Perry: (19:14)
This map shows the 14 cities with population gains of 100,000 or more this decade. 12 were located in the south or west, with one each in the Northeast and Midwest. The cities with the largest population gains this decade where New York, up more than 600,000 and Houston up just over 200,000. This map shows the 10 fastest growing cities in percentage terms this decade, among those that had at least 50,000 people in 2010. The map shows those 10 fastest growing cities as red dots. And it labels their nearest large city as a green dot. As you can see these fast growing cities are generally suburbs of nearby larger cities. So in other words, Frisco and McKinney, Texas are both fast-growing cities near Dallas and Kent, Washington is a fast-growing suburb of Seattle. All 10 of these cities grew by at least 44%. And the fastest growing one, Buckeye Arizona, a Western suburb of Phoenix was up nearly 80% this decade to reach over 91,000 in population. In summary, US population growth slowed this decade. Only the 1930s had slower growth. Fewer states, Metro areas, and counties had rapid population growth this decade. Population decline was widespread this decade. Most counties lost population between 2010 and 2020. On average, smaller counties tended to lose population and more populous counties tended to grow. Population growth this decade was almost entirely in Metro areas. Metro areas grew by 8.7% and micro areas grew by 0.8%. population in territory, not in a Metro or micro area declined by 2.8%. all 10 of the country’s most populous cities grew this decade. I’ll now turn it over to my colleague Nicholas Jones, who will discuss some of the broader 2020 census findings for race and ethnicity.

Nicholas Jones: (21:21)
Thank you, Mark. That was really great information about how areas across the nation are changing. Good afternoon. I’m Nicholas Jones, the director of race, ethnicity, research, and outreach for the Census Bureau’s Population Division. I’m honored to be here and excited to share highlights on 2020 census statistics for race and ethnicity.

Mark and I would both like to thank all of the dedicated census staff and especially our colleagues on Population Division for the months and months of work undertaken during the pandemic to process, code, review, and analyze the 2020 data. Census bureau experts have worked tirelessly to prepare this new information for the American public. You entrusted us with this data and it is our duty to return it back to you, the people of the United States. Today’s release of 2020 census data provide a new snapshot of the racial and ethnic composition and the racial and ethnic diversity of our nation.

To help state officials, researchers, media, and the public examine the re-districting statistics for your state and county, as well as other areas across the country, we just released two America counts stories on our website. Together, the stories provide a new snapshot of our nation’s population and how interconnected we are. It’s important to frame the 2020 census data historically as the US Census Bureau has collected data on race since the first census in 1790 and data on Hispanic or Latino origin since the 1970 census. How the concepts of race and ethnicity are measured and how the statistics are collected and coded has changed every decade.

These changes reflected social, political, and economic factors throughout our nation’s history. You can explore the new database on our website, census.gov. The 2020 census data enable us to understand how the racial and ethnic composition and the racial and ethnic diversity of the United States population looked in 2020. Before we present the results, it’s important to note that the US Census Bureau collects race and ethnicity data in accordance with the 1997 standards for maintaining, collecting, and presenting federal data on race and ethnicity directed by the US Office of Management and Budget or OMB.

Therefore, the designs of the 2020 census questions on Hispanic origin and race are similar to the designs used in the 2000 census and the 2010 census. While the Census Bureau tested in alternative question design in 2015, we must ultimately follow the 1997 OMB standards and use two separate questions to collect data on race and on ethnicity. Our testing, however, did show that we could make improvements to the 2020 census race and ethnicity questions within the OMB guide guidelines.

Building on our extensive research and outreach last decade, we made several improvements to the questions for 2020. I encourage you to check out our recent webinar and blog to learn more. We improved the ways we process the data and code the responses to these questions. This work began in 2015 with our research and testing centered on findings from the 2015 National Content Test. And the designs were implemented in the 2018 Census Test. The improvements and changes enable a more thorough and accurate depiction of how people self identify, yielding a more accurate portrait of how people report their Hispanic origin and their race within the context of a two questions format.

These trends changes reveal that the US population is much more multi-racial and more racially and ethnically diverse than what we measured in the past. We are confident that differences in the overall racial distributions are largely due to improvements in the design of the two separate questions for race data, collection and processing, as well as some demographic changes over the past 10 years. We are also confident as shown in our research over the past decade that using a single combined question for race and ethnicity in the decennial census would ultimately yield an even more accurate portrait of how the US population self-identifies, especially for people who self identify as multiracial or multiethnic. The 2020 census illuminates the racial and ethnic composition of the United States. The first component of this composition for ethnicity statistics comes from the question on Hispanic or Latino origin. From these data, we know that the Hispanic or Latino population numbered 62.1 million in 2020. The second component of this composition for racial statistics comes from a separate question on race. To frame the discussion of racial composition, we use the concepts of race alone, race in combination, and race alone or in combination. These concepts have been in place since the 2000 census and the three concepts are central to understanding our country’s changing demographics.

Today’s release of 2020 census statistics provides a new snapshot of the racial and ethnic composition of the country. The white population remains the largest race or ethnicity group in the United States with a 204.3 million people identifying as white alone and 235.4 million people identifying as white alone or in combination with another race group. The two or more races population also referred to as the multi-racial population was measured at 33.8 million people in 2020. The sum of the race alone, or in combination population, at 49.9 million surpassed the black or African-American population, which was 46.9 million as the second largest race alone or in combination group.

The next largest racial populations were the Asian alone or in combination group with 24 million people, the American Indian and Alaska native alone or in combination group with 9.7 million people, and the Native Hawaiian and other Pacific Islander alone or in combination group with 1.6 million people. In the 2020 census for all race groups, the in combination multi-racial populations accounted for most of the overall changes in each racial category.

Although, the white alone population decreased by 8.6% since 2010, the white in combination population saw 316% change during the same period. While the black or African- American alone population grew 5.6% since 2010, the black or African-American in combination population grew 88.7%. Over the past 10 years, the American Indian and Alaska Native in combination population increased by 160%. The Asian alone population grew by 35.5% between 2010 and 2020. In comparison, the Asian in combination population grew 55.5% since 2010. The Native Hawaiian and other Pacific Islander alone population grew by 27.8% between 2010 and 2020.

In comparison, the Native Hawaiian and other Pacific Islander in combination population grew faster at 30.8% since 2010. The some other race in combination population changed 733% since 2010. It is important to note that these comparisons between the 2020 census and 2010 census race data should be made with caution taking into account the improvements we have made to the Hispanic origin and race questions, data processing, and the ways we code what people tell us. Accordingly data from the 2020 census showed different, but reasonable and expected distributions from the 2010 census for the white alone population, the sum of the race alone or in combination population, and the multiracial population, especially for people who self identify as both white and some other race.

The largest multiracial combinations in 2020 were white and some other race at 19.3 million, white and American Indian and Alaska Native with 4 million, white and black or African-American at 3.1 million, white and Asian at 2.7 million, and black or African-American and some other race with 1 million. Another way to examine data on race and ethnicity is to cross tabulate Hispanic or Latino origin by race. This was done for census 2000 and the 2010 census, as well as the 2020 census redistricting tables. Table P2 provides cross tabulated, Hispanic origin by race statistics. To illustrate the results from the cross tabulation of Hispanic origin by race data, this graphic compares percent change in racial identification among the Hispanic or Latino population shown on the left and the percent change among non-Hispanics on the right. Number of people of Hispanic or Latino origin who identified as white alone decreased by 52.9% down from 26.7 million to 12.6 million over the 10 year period.

Between 2010 and 2020, the number of people of Hispanic or Latino origin reporting more than one race increased from 3 million, 6% to 20.3 million, 32.7%, a 567% change. We described the results in our America Counts story with an overview of race and ethnicity in the United States. Again, these results are not surprising as they align with our expert research and corresponding findings this past decade about the impacts of the decennial census question format on race and ethnicity reporting. These improvements more accurately illustrate the richness and complexity of how people self-identify their race and ethnicity in response to two separate questions within the current OMB standards.

In a companion America Counts story that we released today, we illustrate how the 2020 census results allow us to measure the nation’s racial and ethnic diversity and how it varies at different geographic levels. We explore multiple measures of racial and ethnic diversity. For these measures, we cross tabulate the race and Hispanic origin statistics as data users often do such as with the 2020 census redistricting tables. Here, we see results that are not as impacted by the race reporting patterns of Hispanic or Latino respondents.

Thus, we are confident that the changes we are seeing from 2010 to 2020 in the diversity measures, which calculate mutually exclusive Hispanic origin by race groups, likely reflect actual demographic changes in the population over the past 10 years, as well as improvements to the question designs, data processing, and coding. Another way to understand the results from the 2020 census is to see how all racial and ethnic groups are distributed across the country to inform our understanding of diversity. Some people have different perceptions of what it means for a population to be diverse. Our definition for diversity refers to the representation and relative size of different racial and ethnic groups within a population. Diversity is maximized when all groups are represented in an area and have equal shares of the population. We are using several approaches to measure the racial and ethnic diversity of the US population. These include the Diversity Index, prevalence rankings, and the Diffusion Score-

… the index, prevalence rankings and the diffusion score, and a series of prevalence maps. To help set the stage, we first present a state level map using data from the 2010 census. The map shows the geographic distribution of the diversity index across the country from state to state. The states shown in dark green were more diverse with a diversity index score of 65.0 or more in 2010. States shown in light green were less diverse in 2010. Now, we have a map calculating the diversity index for the 2020 census. In 2020 at the national level, there was a 61.1% chance that two people chosen at random were from different race and ethnicity groups. This is higher than in 2010 when the diversity index was 54.9%. In general, the states with the highest diversity index scores in the 2020 census are found in the west; Hawaii, California, and Nevada. In the south, Maryland and Texas, along with the District of Columbia, a state equivalent. And in the Northeast, New York and New Jersey.

In 2020 Hawaii had the highest diversity index at 76.0% followed by California with 69.7% and Nevada with 68.8%. You can see the diversity index for all states using our interactive Tableau data visualization on diversity that we released today on our census.gov website. The next measure of diversity that I will present are prevalence ranking graphs. These graphics show the percentage of the population that falls into the largest race or ethnic group, the second largest race or ethnic group, and the third largest race or ethnic group. In this graphic, the colors of the bars represent the different racial and ethnic groups shown in the legend. Looking at the orange bars in column one, we see the white alone, non Hispanic population was the most prevalent racial or ethnic group for all states except California, Hawaii, New Mexico, and the District of Columbia, a state equivalent, as well as Puerto Rico. In 2020, the Hispanic or Latino population became the largest racial or ethnic group in California, comprising 39.4% of the total population up from 37.6% in 2010. In 2020, we also saw shifts in the second most prevalent group for some states.

These are shown in the second column of the graphic. In West Virginia, the multi-racial non-Hispanic population, 4.0%, became the second most prevalent group. In Wisconsin, the Hispanic or Latino population, 7.6%, became the second most prevalent group. In Texas, the first and second most prevalent group rankings did not change between 2010 and 2020, but the difference in size between the white alone non Hispanic population and the Hispanic or Latino population shrank to about a half percent. For the District of Columbia, the difference in the size of the black or African-American alone, non Hispanic population and the white alone, non-Hispanic population narrowed dramatically in 2020 to only a 2.9 percentage point difference down from 15.2 percentage points 10 years ago. As another diversity measure, we also present the diffusion score. This diffusion score measures the percentage of the population that is not in the first, second or third largest race and ethnic groups combined.

This measure tells us how diverse and unconcentrated the population is relative to the largest groups. 2020 census results showed that Hawaii was the state with the highest diffusion score at 21.8% followed by Alaska at 17.9%, Oklahoma at 17.8% and Nevada at 16.0%. Another measure that we use is a series of prevalence maps to show geographic distributions and patterns in racial and ethnic diversity across the country. The first map shows the most prevalent race or ethnicity group by county for 2020. In 2020, the white alone, non-Hispanic population, shown in, orange was the largest group in about 90% of counties. The black or African-American alone, non Hispanic population, shown in blue, was the largest group in some counties in the South. The Hispanic or Latino population, shown in green, was the most prevalent group in counties in the Southwest and West. In addition, the American Indian and Alaska native alone non-Hispanic population, shown in purple, was the largest racial or ethnic group in counties in Alaska, the Four Corners region and the upper Great Plains.

There’s more variation in the map for the second most prevalent racial or ethnic group. Here we see racial or ethnic groups are represented in patterns are not as tightly clustered as they were in specific regions in the first most prevalent group. Often these show an inverse relationship to the most prevalent group map. The Hispanic or Latino population, shown in green, was the second most prevalent group and spanned the entire continental United States with large numbers of counties in every region. The multiracial non-Hispanic population, shown in teal, was the second most prevalent group in many counties throughout the Northern part of the country, as well as Alaska and Hawaii. As the country has grown, we’ve continued to evolve in how we measure the race and ethnicity of the people who live here. The improvements we made to the 2020 census yield have a more accurate portrait of how people self identify in response to two separate questions on Hispanic origin and race.

Our analysis of the 2020 census results show that the US population is much more multi-racial and more racially and ethically diverse than what we measured in the past. We encourage you to use our data visualizations to explore the interactive maps and graphics which illustrate the 2020 results in comparison to 2010. These multiple measures of composition and diversity compliment the 2020 census redistricting data release. These are really amazing resources and we hope you enjoy exploring them as the data enabled us to explore the richness and complexity of our nation’s population in a new light. Thank you for joining us today. And now I’ll turn it back over to Michael.

Thank you speakers. We will now begin taking questions from credential media about the information presented today. Members of the media who registered received the phone number via email. When asking a question, remember, please include your name and media affiliation. Operator, can you please provide the instructions for calling in?

Operator: (41:28)
Certainly. And once again, if you would like to ask your question by phone, please press star one on your telephone keypad. One moment for the first question.

And while we wait for those to ready themselves in the queue, just to remind all of our listeners to today’s news conference. If you go to census.gov, you can access the information that we have posted on our website live. We have a news release under our America Counts story behind the numbers tabs. We have information that we’ve posted about many of the topics that have been discussed today. So I encourage people to take a look at that information if you haven’t seen it already. Operator, are we ready with our first question?

Operator: (42:30)
Yes. And the first question comes from Hansi Wang of NPR. Your line is open.

Hi, Hansi.

Hansi Wang: (42:37)
Thank you. Thank you. I have two questions for Mr. Nicholas Jones. How concerned is the census bureau that now the second largest race group [inaudible 00:42:48] in combination is some other race population that the census bureau’s research in years past has tried to address and tried to provide more specific categories and to provide more specific data for users and the bureau? And a follow up question, is the bureau planning to devote any resources to research how the bureau is coding changes for write in answers may affect any historical comparisons of 2020 race ethnicity data with prior race ethnicity data in the decennial census?

Thank you for those two questions, Hansi. I’ll go ahead and turn them over to Nick now.

Thank you, Michael. And thanks, Hansi, for your questions. So for your first question, in terms of the separate questions results for 2020, we’re not surprised by the findings given the questions are asked in a two separate format. This was shown in our 2015 research in the National Content Test, as well as research over the last several decades about the impacts of separate question formats on race reporting, particularly among the Hispanic population. So one of the ways in which we look at these data, or to make the comparisons with the cross tab with race and Hispanic origin, and those results are comparable to what we’ve seen in the past in terms of trends.

We’re also encouraged by the ways in which we’ve been able to make improvements to the 2020 question designs and our data processing our coding. It’s really important to keep in mind that the decennial census has changed every decade since 1790 as you can see in our data visualization that we released. And the results that we see over time, we want to reflect and acknowledge the changes in both our social and political constructs in our nation’s history. We’ll continue to do more research as we look past 2020 and look towards the future with the 2030 census. Thanks again for your question.

Thanks for that, Nicholas. Operator, can we have our next caller?

Operator: (44:46)
The next question is going to come from Michael Schneider, Associated Press. Your line is open.

Hi, Michael.

Michael Schneider: (44:51)
Thank you. My question was for Mr. Jones. I was just hoping you could put into context the fact that the non-Hispanic white population dropped below 60% for the first time. Do you feel that is meaningful in any way? If so, how? And if not, why not?

Good afternoon, Mike, and thanks for your questions. So one of the things that we’re really excited about with this new release of the 2020 census data is the ways in which we’re looking at the measurements of diversity. And so for 2020 you had several measures that are helping us to understand the complex ways that we can look at our nations populations’ diversity, not just looking at a construct that’s binary, but also looking at ways that we see how people are interrelated and interconnected across the country. So we’re really pleased with the ways that these results can help to illustrate that compared to what we saw 10 years ago.

Thanks for that line of questioning. Operator, do we have a next caller, next question?

Operator: (45:48)
Yes. The next question has come from Michael Macagnone, CQ Roll Call. Your line is open.

Michael Macagnone: (45:55)
Hi, thank you for holding this. I wanted to circle back around on something Hansi asked earlier, has the agency been able to quantify the impact that the coding changes around race and, sorry, race and ethnicity have had on the results?

Thanks for that question, Hansi. I mean, sorry, Michael Macagnone from CQ Roll Call. I’m going to go ahead and toss that over to our population experts to give you some feedback on that.

Thank you, Mike and Michael, for your questions and the follow-up. So one of the ways in which we talk about the results is demonstrated in our America Counts story today on the overview. We do talk about the cautions that should be made when looking at results compared to 2010 given the improvements to the ways that we collect and code and process the data. What’s really important to keep in mind is these are improvements to help us see more accuracy in the 2020 census results given the improvements that we’ve made over the past 10 years.

Thanks for that, Nicholas. Operator, do we have our next caller?

Operator: (46:59)
Yes. And the next question is coming from Steph Knight, Access. Your line is open.

Steph Knight: (47:05)
Hi. I was wondering if you all could provide us with the total number of counties that now have less than 50% of their population made up of non-Hispanic white? Kind of looking to see the increase in majority, minority counties as of 2020.

Let me take a moment and have our experts take a look to see if they have that in front of them. But if they don’t, I’m going to preface me tossing this over to them and encourage you to reach out to us at thepublicinformationoffice@pioandcensus.gov if you have specific questions about data that we can help provide and paint your stories. Gentlemen.

Thank you, Michael. I can take that one. So for the 2020 census, the ways in which we’re measuring diversity are detailed in our America Counts story on diversity. And we’re looking beyond the measures that have been used in the past such as the minority, majority construct to really see the complex diversity that exists within our nation. And so we have results that talk about a diversity index, prevalence maps, prevalence ranking scores, and those really helped to give a more detailed nuanced understanding of our nation’s racial and ethnic diversity. So I encourage you to check out that story and reach out to us if you have additional questions.

Thanks for that. Operator, do we have our next caller?

Operator: (48:24)
The next question is coming from Sunita Sohrabji, India-West Publications. Your line is open.

Hi.

Sunita Sohrabji: (48:32)
Thank you so much for taking my call or taking my question, rather. I was wondering where I could find dis-aggregated data on the Asian American population. And if you could send me some of your findings specifically on the Indian American population.

Thanks for that line of questioning on aggregated data on Asian-American [inaudible 00:48:57]. I’m going to go ahead and toss that back over to our population division experts.

Thank you, Michael. And thanks for the question. So we have a lot of data left to put together for the 2020 census. The data released today for the public law redistricting file focuses on the major categories within race and Hispanic origin. What’s exciting about the 2020 census is that we collected, for the very first time, detailed dis-aggregated information from all population groups. We had a right in line in areas with dedicated for white and black respondents to report their detailed identities for the very first time. And as we move forward in our data collection processing and coding, we’ll be looking at the 2020 census results in a file called the detailed demographic and housing characteristics file.

That’s where you’ll be able to receive information on myriad groups across the country, whether they be detailed Asian groups, detailed black or African-American groups, American Alaska native tribes, and native villages, as well as detailed groups for white, middle Eastern, European and North African populations. So stay tuned. There’s a lot more information yet to release from the 2020 census.

Sunita Sohrabji: (50:01)
When will that be released?

So the release is that we have planned for the detailed DHC, are going to go through a process that’s similar to the public law redistricting file in terms-

Looks like we’ve got a little technical difficulties there. We’ll get Nick back on to address that question and apologize for that. Operator, can we have our next caller?

Operator: (50:36)
Certainly. The next question is coming from Mia Salenetri, WUSA9. Your line is open.

Hi there. Can you hear me?

Mia Salenetri: (50:53)
Hello?

Operator: (50:54)
You may ask your question.

Yes, we can hear you now.

Mia Salenetri: (50:57)
Hi. Yes. Can you hear me? I apologize.

I can hear you now.

Speaker 1: (51:02)
I apologize.

I can hear you now. Go ahead with your question.

Speaker 1: (51:09)
Okay, thank you. I was just wondering if you could go into a little bit more detail into the question design changes for race and ethnicity? What exactly changed and how do you perceive how the question changes alter the way that people respond, and the data that we got from that?

Thanks for that question specific about the question design that we went over in our presentation, and I’ll toss that over to Nicholas Jones who can address that line of questioning. Nicholas?

Mike, I think I’m back online, and I heard the question was about the question format and the impacts on the 2020 results?

That’s correct.

We were not surprised about the results that we see in the 2020 census given that we asked two separate questions, we made a lot of efforts to improve the designs, the data processing, and the coding, and you see that in the results as they compare back to 2010. So I encourage you to read our stories about the overview of race and Hispanic origin, as well as our pre-release blog that we issued last week to talk about some of these results in more detail. Thanks for your question.

Thanks for that, Nicholas. And also, just reaching back out, Michael [Macanome 00:52:19], please give us a call, pio@census.gov and we’ll make sure and circle back or complete that second part to your question that got cut off earlier. But Nicholas, if you remember what it was, you can address it now. I don’t want to put you on the spot.

No. Sorry, Mike, I lost the technical feed, so I’d be happy to talk about that later [crosstalk 00:52:42].

Quite all right, quite all right. We’re working through it just like everyone else, doing everything remotely now. Operator, can we have our next caller?

Operator: (52:50)
And the next question is coming from Edwin Okong’o, Mshale. Your line is open.

[crosstalk 00:52:55].

Edwin Okong’o: (52:57)
Thank you for… Would you please speak a little bit about foreign born population and how it’s changed over the last two or three decades? And whether there’s on country of origin?

Thanks for that line of question on the foreign-pop, and it looks like our population division experts are going to be very popular during today’s news conference, so I’ll toss it back over to them.

Michael, I can take that one. So while we don’t have measures in the decennial census on the foreign born population or nativity, those data are collected and processed and tabulated every year in our American community survey. So I encourage you to reach out to our public information office, to get some detailed information and connect you with subject matter experts who can talk with you about that particular data. Thanks, Michael.

Thank you, Nicholas. And tossing it back to the operator, do we have our next caller?

Operator: (53:50)
Yes, and the next question is coming from Theo Keith, KMSP TV. Your line is open.

Theo Keith : (53:57)
Hi, I’m wondering if you have net migration data? And if so, can it tell us which states in the Midwest saw net migration increases, domestic and international?

Thanks for that line of question on net migration in the states, and specifically, you pointed out the Midwest. I’m going to toss that over to Marc Perry, the population division, Marc?

Marc Perry: (54:24)
Sure, thanks for that question. We don’t actually have migration data from the 2020 census, we essentially have a population count. But what we do, and what we have been and will continue to be doing, is to be analyzing the 2020 data in concert with our post-censusal population estimates program. So here, as you may know, we produce population estimates for the nation’s states, metropolitan and micropolitan statistical areas and all cities and towns. And in with respect to domestic and international migration, we look at counties and states, and that’s one of the components that we release every year. So what we’ll be doing is looking at the 2010 and the 2020 census counts, looking at the domestic and international migration components, and over the coming year we’ll be doing evaluation of those post-censusal estimates to see how they align with the 2020 results.

Thanks for that, Marc. Operator, do we have our next caller? Next question.

Operator: (55:29)
And the next question is coming from Eric Schmid, St. Louis Public Radio. Your line is open.

Eric Schmid: (55:35)
Good afternoon. My question is, I know that the census this year collected more detailed information on sexual partners, so whether people were in LGBTQIA+ relationships. I’m wondering, moving forward, what the Bureau’s plans are to collect more detailed information on non-binary and transgender people, as that did not occur in this census?

Thanks for that line of question on SOGI data collection. I’ll toss that back over to [inaudible 00:56:08], but I think Ron Jarmin our acting director might have something to say, because we have, if you don’t know, a couple of experimental data products that are out there that are collecting some of these datasets.

[crosstalk 00:56:22]. Yeah, and here, just real fast before I toss it over to my much more knowledgeable colleagues, just this week we released results from our household poll survey, which is something that we stood up in response to the pandemic last year, and for the first time we have a full suite of SOGI questions on the household poll survey. There’s also a few other surveys, crime surveys and whatnot that have that information too, but you can glean some information from the census and the ACS, and I’ll turn it over to Marc or Nicholas if they want to tackle that.

Marc Perry: (56:59)
I don’t really have too much to add on top of that. I mean, I’ll just chime in and say that we do have the additional products coming out next year from the Detailed Demographic and Housing Characteristics file that we’ll be looking at content on household and family formation and the like.

Thanks for that, gentlemen. Operator, do we have our next caller?

Operator: (57:24)
Yes, the next question is from Jule Pattison-Gordon, Government Technology. Your line is open.

Hi, Jule.

Jule Pattison-Gordon : (57:30)
Hi, thank you. I was interested in the differential privacy algorithm, and if you could speak to some of the impact of that? And what [inaudible 00:57:40] accuracy limitations that need to be accounted for when interpreting these findings?

Thanks for that question on differential privacy, and before I toss it over to Ron Jarmin, Dr. Jarmin, I’ll just note that for those who aren’t aware, we did release our [inaudible 00:57:56] experimental data product this past Tuesday, and had a webinar. And I encourage you to go to census.gov and click on disclosure avoidance to get that information and to see where we are in our analysis in using disclosure of ordinance and differential privacy. Ron?

Yes. So thank you, Michael, and thanks for that question. So, as you know differential privacy is the method that we’re choosing to protect the confidentiality of our respondent data for the 2020 census, it’s also a technique that we’ve used for several other census data products over the last several years, pretty successfully. I will say that one of the things when we were getting ready to do the census and we were doing research on what were the barriers and motivators for people to respond to the census, the confidentiality of their responses was very high up there, and so we knew that we needed to take that even more seriously than the law requires us to and to make sure that people could trust that the data that they provided us was kept confidential.

So we’ve worked closely with stakeholders and also with the Department of Justice on tailoring our algorithms to provide the best information that we could for redistricting and in the future for the DHC products, conditional on maintaining that confidentiality. And so I think we are confident that at the levels of aggregation that are needed for drawing district boundaries and whatnot, that when you sum the data up, you’re going to get very good resolution in the data.

For very small areas and very small groups, there could be some noise, but that’s what’s required in order to maintain the confidentiality. So I think, I encourage you to look at the resources that Michael mentioned earlier, and there’s lots of stuff out there for you to look at. And again, we did release the last set of demonstration data earlier today, so thank you.

Michael C. Cook Sr.: (01:00:04)
Thanks for that, [inaudible 01:00:05].

Jule Pattison-Gordon : (01:00:04)
Thank you.

Operator, do we have our next caller?

Operator: (01:00:07)
And the next question is coming from Tara Bahrampour, The Washington Post. Your line is open.

Hi, Tara.

Tara Bahrampour: (01:00:16)
Hi, can you hear me?

Loud and clear.

Tara Bahrampour: (01:00:17)
Hi. So my question is in multi-parts. Real quickly, the white population shrank by about 20 million people, if I have this accurate, but I’m a little unclear here whether they dipped below 60%? Because we heard that earlier from someone in the questions, but we’re unable to confirm that. So can you confirm that, the 20 million and also whether it’s under 60%? And then can you discuss how much this is related or possibly related to change in how people self identified? And then finally, can you verify whether the under 18 population became more than 50% people of color or non-white?

Thanks for those questions. We’ve got this all down and we’ll chew on this and toss it around the horn and try and address this there’s three part question. I’m going to turn it over to our population division experts, Marc Perry and Nicholas Jones to give you some feedback on not just the white population shrinking, self identification and the under 18 population going up. Gentlemen?

Nicholas Jones: (01:01:28)
Thank you, Michael. I can take that one. So we have a lot of great information in our America Counts Story that we released today on the overview of race and Hispanic origin, as well as our American Counts Story on diversity. One of the measures that we detail is the look at composition from a perspective of race with the alone, alone or in combination populations where you see for one, the white alone population, which decreased by 8.6% over 10 years, was offset by the increase in the multiracial population within the white population, we refer to that as the white alone or in combination population. That group rose by about 300%, as you can see here on the slide.

We also have detailed findings looking at race reportings among the Hispanic origin population, and you can see differences there in the reporting of white alone, as well as very tremendous increases in reporting of multi-racial groups within the Hispanic origin population. That level of detail is in our America Counts Stories, and you can understand the nuances with both our improvements to the questions, as well as demographic change, to really get a better feel and an understanding of the story that we see now in 2020 with this new portrait.

The last thing I’ll say about your question on the under 18 population, that’s detailed as well in our America Counts Story, and we see differences in the patterns for children, the population under 18, compared to the patterns of adults, those 18 and over, and that really details a look at how the future generations may be comprised demographically when you look at the concepts of race and Hispanic origin. So Tara, thank you for your questions.

Thanks, Nicholas. Operator, do we have our next caller?

And we’re currently waiting for more parties to queue up. One moment, please. The next question is coming-

Could you repeat that? We couldn’t hear you.

Certainly. And the next question is coming from [Ras Barber 01:03:19], TV One, USA. Your line is open.

Hi, there.

Ras Barber: (01:03:23)
Okay, good evening, gentlemen. My question is where [inaudible 01:03:28] the data for the growth of South Asian, especially Muslims in the metropolitan area and other parts of the USA.

Thanks for that line of question, I’m going to pass that over to our very popular folks over in pop division. Marc and Nicholas?

Thank you, Michael. I can take that one also. So again, we have information that will be released in the future from the 2020 Census looking at detailed desegregated groups, such as South Asian detailed groups, Pakistani, Asian-Indian, Bengali, Bangladeshi, and many others. That’s true for both the Asian population, as well as our other racial and ethnic groups that we’re releasing today in an aggregate form, so I encourage you to stay tuned for the results from 2020 in our Detailed Demographic and Housing Characteristics File. We also have yearly estimates available through the American Community Survey, you can see some of that information and track over the past several years detailed results for detailed Asian groups. Michael, I’ll turn it back to you.

[crosstalk 01:04:30]. Thank you, Nicholas. Thank you. Operator, do we have anyone else? Another caller?

We have no further questions in queue.

Well, if there’s no other callers I’d like to thank everyone, thank you, everyone. Today gives us an in-depth look at how the US population has grown and changed since the 2020 census. Local leaders who choose to use this data make decisions such as where to build roads and hospitals, and even how to respond to natural disasters and future pandemics. You will find many materials related to the release of the 2020 Census Redistricting PL 94-171 summary files data on our website, including the America Counts Stories that we’ve mentioned today.

Also, there are data visualizations, a news release, and a comprehensive press kit with all the materials about today’s release. Please visit census.gov to access this information. Members of the media, please again, contact us at pio@census.gov or call, 1-877-861-2010 for any additional questions. Again, thank you all for joining us. On behalf of the Census Bureau, it’s a privilege to provide the 2020 Census Redistricting Data Summary files to you, we relied heavily on your responses to the 2020 census. We are honored to be able to return your data to you, and it goes without saying, that it took the efforts of many census partners, temporary and permanent employees, their dedication and diligent work to make today a reality. We look forward to releasing even more rich data about our nation in the coming year. Remember to follow us on social media @uscensusbureau to stay up to date on our latest news. That concludes our briefing for today, thank you for joining us.

2020 Census Update Transcript: New Population Data

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