According to a widely circulated study, non-whites will become a majority in the USA by 2050.
To put this in perspective: the U.S. was 80% white in 1980. I was 12 years old that year.
This is the kind of study that is politically charged, of course. If you fall to one side of the political continuum, you’re supposed to clap your hands and cheer for all the diversity. Yippee! If you identify with the other side, you’re supposed to lament this as the inevitable downfall of the USA.
To bring this back to me: I’ll be 82 years old in 2050. So whether this turns out to be a good thing or a bad thing, all the rest of you can work it out.
But I wouldn’t get too excited about this study one way or the other in 2026. 2050 is a long way off. A lot of things could happen between now and then that could change this predicted outcome—or reinforce it.
For example, immigration from abroad could be completely cut off. Or…it could double or triple.
Childbearing rates could change, too. That’s one thing to keep in mind when they’re talking about low birth rates. Low birth rates are never more than one generation away from reversing. The postwar Baby Boom generation kind of proved that. The childbearing young adults of 2040 aren’t even in junior high yet. They may all decide that they want to have five kids.
In 1979 my sixth-grade science teacher predicted that within 10 years, everyone in the USA would be using the metric system for everything. Because the metric system was the wave of the future!
That means that all those gallons, feet, and inches should have gone away before 1990. Guess how that turned out? I purchased gasoline by the gallon just this afternoon, in 2026. I bought a dozen eggs, too. And young Americans, who weren’t even born in 1979, reflexively give their height and weight in feet and pounds.
Take all predictions with a grain of salt. Especially predictions of outcomes that won’t show up for decades.
-ET