Minorities Having Close to Half of All U.S. Babies, Census Says

By Brendan Murray

June 11 (Bloomberg) -- Minority groups in the U.S. are close to having more children than non-Hispanic whites and are on a trajectory to constitute a majority of the population, the Census Bureau said.

Blacks, Asians, American Indians, Hispanics and other traditional minority groups had 2.07 million children in the 12 months ended July 1, 2009, or 48.6 percent of all births, an increase from 45 percent in 2005, Census estimates released yesterday showed.

Non-Hispanic whites had 2.19 million children over the same period, or 51.4 percent of all births, according to Census. That was down from 55 percent four years earlier, Census figures showed.

Blacks accounted for 17.6 percent of all births in the 12 months to July 1, 2009, down from 17 percent in 2005; Hispanics accounted for 25.8 percent in 2009 compared with 22.6 percent four years earlier; Asians had 6.1 percent of all births as of July 1 last year, up from 5.5 percent four years earlier, Census figures showed.

--Editors: Vince Golle, Christopher Wellisz

To contact the reporter on this story: Brendan Murray in Washington at Brmurray@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Christopher Wellisz at cwellisz@bloomberg.net