US population older than it has ever been

The US population has been aging over the past two decades, and new demographic data shows that Americans are now older than ever.

The nation's median age reached a record high of 38.9 years in 2022, according to data released Thursday by the US Census Bureau.

That is an increase of 0.2 year in the past year and about 3.5 years since 2000. In 1980, the national median age was 30.

"As the nation's median age creeps closer to 40, you can really see how the aging of baby boomers, and now their children — sometimes called echo boomers — is impacting the median age," Kristie Wilder, a demographer in the Census Bureau's Population Division, said in a news release.

A third of US states had a median age above 40 in 2022, led by Maine with the highest at 44.8, and New Hampshire at 43.3. Utah had the lowest median age, 31.9 years, followed by the District of Columbia at 34.8 and Texas at 35.5, according to the Census Bureau.

No states experienced a decrease in median age.

Experts attribute the rising median age primarily to low birth rates.

"Birth rates have gradually declined over the past two decades. Without a rapidly growing young population, the US median age will likely continue its slow but steady rise," Wilder said.

Like many other countries, the US birth rate has been falling almost continuously for more than a decade. The sharp decrease during the recession from 2007 to 2009 was followed by a sustained downward trend. In 2007, the average birth rate was around 2 children per woman. By 2021, it had fallen by more than 20 percent, close to the lowest level in a century.

Thursday's census data also reveals that the US is becoming more diverse. From 2021 to 2022, the Asian population experienced the most significant growth among all racial groups, increasing by 2.4 percent. The Hispanic population followed with a growth of 1.7 percent. The black population grew by 0.9 percent, and the white population by 0.1 percent.

California has the largest Asian population in the US, followed by New York and Texas. California also had the largest increase in its Asian population, while Montana had the fastest-growing Asian population, with a growth rate of 6.8 percent, the census data shows.

Meanwhile, the new census data also shows that black residents are continuing to leave urban centers in the North and elsewhere.

Different from the Great Migration that began in the early 20th century when millions of black Americans moved to the North seeking better job prospects and to escape racial violence, the new data reveals that more black individuals have been moving to Southern states in recent years.

For example, Kaufman County, a large county in Texas, had the fastest-growing black population in the nation, with an increase of 21 percent or 6,207 individuals between 2021 and 2022, according to census data.

Major cities with significant historical black populations, such as Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland, and Oakland, California, are losing black residents, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing the census data.

Much of the current shift is driven by younger, college-educated black people who are relocating from northern and western places to the South, William Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution, told The Wall Street Journal.

minluzhang@chinadailyusa.com