Home
/
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
/
7 Figures: As the Nation Ages, Seven States Become Younger
7 Figures: As the Nation Ages, Seven States Become Younger
Jan 7, 2026 8:12 AM

Last week the Census Bureaureleased a report on demographic changes in the United States.The median age declined in seven states between 2012 and 2013, including five in the Great Plains, according to U.S. Census Bureau estimates.

“We’re seeing the demographic impact of two booms,” Census Bureau Director John Thompson said. “The population in the Great Plains energy boom states is ing younger and more male as workers move in seeking employment in the oil and gas industry, while the U.S. as a whole continues to age as the youngest of the baby boom generation enters their 50s.”

Here are seven figures you should know from the latest report:

1. Non-Hispanic, single-race whites remained the nation’s largest group with a population of 197.8 million. The total of all other groups was 118.3 million, or 37.4 percent of the population. Non-Hispanic single-race whites made up 52.4 percent of the population under 18.

2. Asians were the fastest-growing group from 2012 to 2013. The Asian population increased by almost 2.9 percent to 19.4 million, an increase of about 554,000 people.

3. Following Asians in rate of growth were Native Hawaiians and Other Pacific Islanders (increasing 2.3 percent to just over 1.4 million), American Indians and Alaska Natives (increasing 1.5 percent to slightly more than 6.4 million) and blacks or African-Americans (increasing 1.2 percent to 45 million).

4. The non-Hispanic white alone population was the only group to have natural decrease (more deaths than births) from 2012 to 2013. However, due to migration, its population rose 0.1 percent from 2012 to 2013, reaching 197.8 million. Because of its slow rate of growth relative to other groups, its share of the total population declined from 63.0 percent to 62.6 percent over the period.

5. The 85-and-older population grew by about 3 percent between 2012 and 2013 to 6 million. The number of people age 100 and over reached 67,000 in 2013.

6. Florida had the highest percentage of its total population age 65 and older (18.7 percent), followed by Maine (17.7 percent). Utah had the highest percentage of its total population under age 5 at 8.8 percent, followed by Alaska (7.5 percent).

7. There were only 10 states where males made up the majority of the population on July 1, 2013. Alaska had the highest percentage of men at 52.4 percent, followed by North Dakota (51.1 percent), Wyoming (51.0 percent), Hawaii (50.5 percent), Nevada (50.4 percent), Utah (50.3 percent), Colorado (50.2 percent), South Dakota (50.2 percent), Montana (50.2 percent), and Idaho (50.1 percent).

Other posts in this series:

Trafficking in Persons Report • American Time Use Survey • The Shifting Religious Identity of Latinos in the U.S. • Inmate Sexual Victimization by Correctional Authorities • Tax Day Edition • Wages and Employment in America

Comments
Welcome to mreligion comments! Please keep conversations courteous and on-topic. To fosterproductive and respectful conversations, you may see comments from our Community Managers.
Sign up to post
Sort by
Show More Comments
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
Healthcare and Catholics: True and False Arguments
This week’s Acton Commentary: Healthcare reform – it’s one of those causes almost everyone favors, but which almost automatically produces sharp arguments when we ask what it means and how it might be realized. You would have had to be living in a cave for the past eight months to be unaware that Americans are deeply divided on this matter, and that the division runs clean through the middle of munities. That includes Catholic America. Of course, there are a...
Review: Billy Graham and the Rise of the Republican South
Explaining the realignment of American Southern politics is often a favorite area of study among historians and scholars. A region that was once dominated by yellow dog Democrats, has for the most part continued to expand as a loyal region for the Grand Old Party. Among the earliest and mon narrative among liberal historians and writers is the belief that the realignment in the South had to do with a backlash against desegregation. Steven P. Miller in his new book...
Green Patriarch’s ‘web of life’ has a gaping hole in it
In yesterday’s Wall Street Journal, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I offered mentary related to his recently closed environmental symposium in New Orleans. He said this: For if all life is sacred, so is the entire web that sustains it … no one doubts that there is a connection and balance among all things animate and inanimate on this third planet from the Sun, and that there is a cost or benefit whenever we tamper with that balance. Words pleasing to the...
The Hidden Tithe
Recently I got a phone call from an engineering manager I’ve known for over ten years. He informed me that he’d been laid off last spring, but before I could offer condolences he added that he’d been hired by pany in the same industry for a consulting assignment. That temporary work had lasted over six months but was winding down. He hadn’t been a contract “consultant” before and after some additional small talk told me, “… and I’ve discovered something...
America’s Uncontrolled Debt and Spending is the Real ‘Waterloo’
In mentary this week, “America’s Uncontrolled Debt and Spending is the Real ‘Waterloo,’” I offer the well known point that debt and spending threatens our liberty and prosperity. It is ing very evident that it will be up to citizens to demand accountability from their lawmakers, as I mentioned. What has been tried before has not worked. In terms of liberty, Thomas Jefferson declared, “The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground.” What...
Kling on Conservatism and Authority
Arnold Kling continued last week’s conversation about the relationship between conservatism and libertarianism over at EconLog. Kling’s analysis is worth reading, and he concludes that the divide between conservatives and libertarians has to do with respect (or lack thereof) for hierarchical authority. Kling does allow for the possibility of a “secular conservative…someone who respects the learning embodied in traditional values and beliefs, without assigning them a divine origin.” I’m certainly inclined to agree, and I think there are plenty of...
Capitalism is Not Based on Greed
In a new essay at The American, Jay Richards explains why capitalism isn’t based on greed. In Acton’s first documentary, The Call of the Entrepreneur, Richards along Rev. Robert Sirico, Sam Gregg, Michael Novak and others touch on this matter in making the moral case for the free economy. ...
Tocqueville at IU
The Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis at Indiana University has announced the launch of a new initiative focused on the thought of Alexis de Tocqueville. The Tocqueville Program aims “to foster an understanding of the central importance of principles of freedom and equality for democratic government and moral responsibility, as well as for economic and cultural life.” The program’s first event will be held next month (November 6), and is titled, “What’s Wrong with Tocqueville Studies, and What...
The Release of the NIV Stewardship Study Bible
Ahead of it’s “official” release date of Nov. 1, 2009, the NIV Stewardship Study Bible and Effective Stewardship DVD Curriculum can be found on the shelves of most major book retailers around the country. Zondervan’s release of these foundational resources is the result of a strategic partnership of the Stewardship Council and the Acton Institute working to bring the Biblical message of effective stewardship to bear on the moral and economic climate of our world. To learn more about these...
Public schools flunk the test on black males
My latest mentary: Do at-risk black males need to be emancipated en masse from America’s public plex? A new study released about high school dropout and incarceration rates among blacks raises the question. Nearly 23 percent of all American black men ages 16 to 24 who have dropped out of high school are in jail, prison, or a juvenile justice institution, according to a new report from the Center for Labor Markets at Northeastern University, “Consequences of Dropping Out of...
Related Classification
Copyright 2023-2026 - www.mreligion.com All Rights Reserved