So far, Latino Population is Exceeding Expectations

Not to gloat and say “I told you so,” but I told you so.

We’ve been talking at News Taco about how the totals for the Latino population in the 2010 Census were going to take many people by surprise. Our in-house  straw-poll, off-the-cuff, and somewhat educated tea leaf guess was that Latinos would number somewhere between 50 and 55 million. We should buy lottery tickets. But it wasn’t that difficult an assumption. The nation’s top demographers had been signaling that grwoth in advance of the official population number release.

The story now is how that growth is changing and will change the states, counties and communities where is has been the largest. Portada-online.com has a good story about the Latino growth in the 21 states where the Census numbers have been released. So far, the stats are astonishing. As the numbers are released we’re seeing that the projections, even our own at News Taco, are being exceeded. Fifty percent of the growth in those 21 states has been Latino. Portada put the highlights of the Latino numbers crunching in convenient bullets:

• Hispanics accounted for nearly 46% of the total population growth in Nevada. Moreover, in the last decade Nevada was the fastest growing state among total population and Hispanics outpaced total population growth in the state 81.9% vs. 35.1%.
• In Utah, Hispanics accounted for nearly 30% of the total population growth. 1 out of every 3 individuals added to the state population is of Hispanic origin.
• In Colorado, Hispanics are growing four times as fast as non-Hispanic whites and account for more than 42% of the total population growth in the state.
• Hispanics are growing eight times faster than non-Hispanics (63.5% vs. 7.5%) in Oregon and accounted for 43% of overall growth in the state.
• In Washington, Hispanics account for 38% of the total population growth in the state and are growing faster than any other demographic group.
• The Hispanic population in Alabama more than doubled in the last decade.
• Minorities contributed to all of the population growth in Hawaii among those under 18. Hispanics contributed nearly 48% of the minority growth among those under 18.
• 1 out of every 4 individuals added to theMissouri population is of Hispanic origin.

Based on the aggregated population of Hispanics who reside in the 21 states released by Census at this point:

• There are 19.3 million Hispanics.
• Hispanic population has grown 50% since Census 2000.
• Approximately 6.4 million “new Hispanics in the U.S.” contributed 54% of overall growth in the U.S.
• 1 out of every 2 individuals added to the total population in the states released by Census is of Hispanic origin.
• 49% of the Hispanic population in the 21 states reported resides in Texas (9.4 million).