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WASHINGTON – According to the PEW Hispanic Center, Hispanics accounted for just over half of the overall population growth in the United States since 2000 - a significant new demographic milestone for the nation's largest minority group.
This is in contrast to the 1990’s when the Hispanic population also expanded rapidly, but its growth accounted for less than 40% of the nation's total population increase in that decade. From 2000 to 2007, Latinos accounted for 50.5% of the total U.S. population growth, even though, as of mid-2007, they made up just 15.1% of the total population.
In another change from the 1990s, Latino population growth in this new century has been more a product of the natural increase (births minus deaths) of the existing population than it has been of new international migration, according to Pew Hispanic Center analysis.
There are both continuities and differences in the Hispanic settlement patterns of this decade, compared with the patterns of the 1990s. The dispersion of Latinos in the current decade has tilted more to counties in the West and the Northeast than it had in the 1990s. Despite the new tilt, however, the South still accounted for a greater share of overall Latino population growth than any other region did from 2000 to 2007.
Much of the Latino population growth in this decade has taken place in small and mid-sized cities and in suburbs - many of which had relatively few Latino residents until the past decade or two. A handful of big cities have also played a sizable role in Latino population growth in this decade. For example, the Latino population grew by more than 400,000 from 2000 to 2007 in just three counties: Los Angeles, Maricopa (Phoenix) and Harris (Houston). But because these counties already had a large base of Hispanic residents at the start of the decade, the growth of their Latino population since then has been less dramatic in percentage terms.
The center’s report also concluded that:
Hispanic population growth since 2000 has been widespread. The Hispanic population has grown in almost 3,000 of the nation's 3,141 counties.
At the same time, Hispanic population growth in the new century has been fairly concentrated. Hispanic population growth in just 178 counties accounts for 79% of the nation's entire 10.2 million Hispanic population increase.
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