Por qué el estado de Ohio tiene un futuro limitante?

Demographics is destiny.  Changing demographics can create both opportunities and hardships.  The rapidly changing statistics of the Hispanic population in the U.S.provides a great illustration of this phenomena.

More than half of the growth in the total population of the United States between 2000 and 2010 was due to the increase in the Hispanic population.  Between 2000 and 2010, the Hispanic population grew by 43%, which was four times the growth in the total population at 10 percent.  In 2010, people of Mexican origin comprised the largest Hispanic group. representing 63% of the total Hispanic population.

Understanding the geographic distribution of the Hispanic group is important.  More than three-quarters of the Hispanic population lived in the West or South based on information from the 2010 census.  Over half of the Hispanic population in the United States resided in just three states: California, Texas, and Florida.  Hispanics were the majority in 51 counties in Texas.  A quick rundown of the total population versus Hispanic or Latino population from 2010 for several Texas cities:

• Houston - 2,098,451 / 913,668
• San Antonio - 1,327,407 / 838,952
• El Paso - 649,121 / 523,721
• Dallas - 1,197,816 / 507,309

Given the uneven growth of the Hispanic population and potential, some states and areas have the potential to be  much bigger losers than others.  The Cinco de Mayo Scorecard from various states will be interesting to keep tabs on.  Consider the case of Texas and Ohio.  Key metrics in the scorecard include the following:

• Persons of Hispanic or Latino origin, % of total State (2011) - - 38.1 / 3.2 (Texas / Ohio)
• Hispanic-owned firms, % of total State (2007) - - 20.7 / 1.1
• Population change, total, % 2000-2010 - - 20.6 / 1.6
• Population change, Hispanic, % 2000-2010 - - 41.8 / 63.4

The "demographics as destiny" part of the equation will have significant impacts in the United States during this century.  Consider the following from the Huffington Post:

"By 2060, multiracial people are projected to more than triple, from 7.5 million to 26.7 million – rising even faster and rendering notions of race labels increasingly irrelevant, experts say, if lingering stigma over being mixed-race can fully fade.

The non-Hispanic white population, now at 197.8 million, is projected to peak at 200 million in 2024, before entering a steady decline in absolute numbers as the massive baby boomer generation enters its golden years. Four years after that, racial and ethnic minorities will become a majority among adults 18-29 and wield an even greater impact on the "youth vote" in presidential elections, census projects.

"The fast-growing demographic today is now the children of immigrants," said Marcelo Suarez-Orozco, a global expert on immigration and dean of UCLA's Graduate School of Education & Information Studies, describing the rate of minority growth in the U.S. as dipping from "overdrive" to "drive." Even with slowing immigration, Suarez-Orozco says, the "die has been cast" for strong minority growth from births.

As recently as 1960, whites made up 85 percent of the U.S., but that share has steadily dropped after a 1965 overhaul of U.S. immigration laws opened doors to waves of new immigrants from Mexico, Latin America and Asia. By 2000, the percentage of U.S. whites had slid to 69 percent; it now stands at nearly 64 percent.

"Moving forward, the U.S. will become the first major post-industrial society in the world where minorities will be the majority," Suarez-Orozco said. With the white baby boomer population now leaving the workforce, the big challenge will be educating the new immigrants, he said.

The U.S. has nearly 315 million people today. According to the projections released Wednesday, the U.S. population is projected to cross the 400 million mark in 2051, 12 years later than previously projected. The population will hit 420.3 million a half century from now in 2060.

By then, whites will drop to 43 percent of the U.S. Blacks will make up 14.7 percent, up slightly from today. Hispanics, currently 17 percent of the population, will more than double in absolute number, making up 31 percent, or nearly 1 in 3 residents, according to the projections. Asians are expected to increase from 5 percent of the population to 8 percent.

Among children, the point when minorities become the majority is expected to arrive much sooner, by 2018 or so. Last year, racial and ethnic minorities became a majority among babies under age 1 for the first time in U.S. history.

At the same time, the U.S. population as a whole is aging, driven by 78 million mostly white baby boomers born between 1946 and 1964. By 2030, roughly 1 in 5 residents will be 65 and older. Over the next half century, the "oldest old" – those ages 85 and older – will more than triple to 18.2 million, reaching 4 percent of the U.S. population.

The actual shift in demographics will be shaped by a host of factors that can't always be accurately pinpointed – the pace of the economic recovery, cultural changes, natural or manmade disasters, as well as an overhaul of immigration law, which is expected to be debated in Congress early next year.

"The next half century marks key points in continuing trends – the U.S. will become a plurality nation, where the non-Hispanic white population remains the largest single group, but no group is in the majority," said acting Census Bureau Director Thomas Mesenbourg."