U.S. minorities are becoming the majority

By Robert Pear The New York Times

WASHINGTON The United States as a whole is moving in the direction of its two most populous states, California and Texas, where members of racial and ethnic minorities account for more than half the population, according to the Census Bureau.

Non-Hispanic whites now make up two-thirds of the total U.S. population, the bureau said, but that proportion will dip to one-half by 2050, according to the agency's latest projections.

In a new report, estimating population levels as of July 1, 2004, the Census Bureau said Texas had a minority population of 11.3 million, accounting for 50.2 percent of its total population of 22.5 million. Texas is the fourth state in which minority groups, taken together, account for a majority of the population. But no one racial or ethnic group by itself accounts for a majority of the total population there.

Steven Murdock, the state demographer for Texas, said, "In some sense, Texas is a preview of what the nation will become in the long run."

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