New Census Bureau population estimates for the second full year after the 2010 Census show something resembling “normal” population shifts after five years of recession-induced anomaly. During that period, we witnessed a downsized exodus from traditional out-migration areas, mostly in the North, and similarly suppressed in-flows to previously fast-growing Sun Belt areas. A host of factors, including lack of jobs and mortgage financing in the wake of the Great Recession, brought national migration rates down to post-war lows, essentially freezing people in place. Immigration levels were down as well.

But an analysis of the new numbers for the period of July 2011 to July 2012 implies that the migration log jam maybe coming to an end, especially for large metropolitan areas. As a group, such areas in the South and West showed a growth uptick, a year after registering their lowest growth rate in decades. They also received their biggest domestic in-migration since 2001. At the same time, large areas in the Northeast and Midwest saw their greatest migration losses since 2008, which is when their recession-related “migrant retention” started to emerge.

Each of the 20 fastest-growing metropolitan areas in 2011-2012 (among the top 100) were located in the South and West and most grew more rapidly than in the previous year—including Charleston, Orlando, Houston, Dallas, and San Antonio. Similarly, each of the 20 slowest growing or declining areas were located in the Northeast and Midwest, including Youngstown, Buffalo, Pittsburgh, and St. Louis, most of which grew more slowly in the past year. So after a five-year hiatus, Snow Belt/Sun Belt growth trajectories are, once again, heading in opposite directions.

An examination of the domestic migration patterns provides further emphasis, with some surprises (See map below). Here, each of the 2011-2012 top gainers showed higher levels of migration than in 2010-2011. Not unexpectedly, Dallas and Houston rank first and second, with Austin and San Antonio not far behind. These Texas areas were migration draws, even during the recent down period, as they were not as severely affected by national housing and job market ills.

Yet the rise of Phoenix, as it were, to become the third-biggest migration gainer is of special note, given its plunge in the post-housing bubble years (See Figure 1 below). Similar turnarounds are evident in Las Vegas, which experienced net out-migration over the prior three years, and Atlanta, Orlando, Cape Coral, and Jacksonville, among others, each showing in-migration levels not seen since at least 2008.

At the other extreme, migration losses were especially noteworthy in Northeastern metropolitan areas, New York, Philadelphia, Hartford, Syracuse, as well as a slew of smaller metropolitan areas in New England and Upstate New York.  In each case, the losses exceeded those of the previous year and seemed to put an end to their recession-era migrant retention. Chicago also experienced reduced out-migration or migration retention over the 2007-2010 period, but began show increased out-movement a year ahead of some others. Los Angeles has long been a Sun Belt outlier, feeding migrants to the rest of the West.

Immigration levels also took a hit over the past five years, in part, due to the same causes:  a poor economy in general and a lack of jobs in construction and other immigrant employing industries. But those numbers are also starting to rise—approaching 1 million annually. This may prove timely for older areas starting to lose their hold on domestic migrants by providing an “immigrant cushion.” The new Census estimates show that each of the 100 largest metropolitan areas received more immigrants in 2011-2012 than in 2010-2011.

There is still one area that has not yet reached “normal” expectations, according to the new data: migration to the nation’s outer suburbs. According to a Brookings framework used in previous studies, outer exurban counties are experiencing a net out-migration for the second year in a row and another set of counties classed as “emerging suburbs” continue to grow tepidly, well below earlier years.

Nonetheless, the new Census population estimates make a compelling case that, for better or worse, traditional cross-regional migration patterns are returning. Of course, this turning point is a precarious one because it is dependent on the availability of jobs and a further improvement in the economy. Lets cross our fingers and hope it continues.

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Editor's Note: In the wake of President Obama's immigration reform speech and a new bipartisan proposal emerging in the Senate, four Metropolitan Policy Program experts highlight how metropolitan areas, home to 95 percent of the nation's immigrants, will play an important role in the immigration policy debate. See our immigration resources page for more key topics and relevant research and commentary.

President Obama’s speech yesterday in Las Vegas, following the unveiling of the “Gang of Eight” senators’ principles for immigration reform, signals that our leaders mean business.  Previously the only aspect of immigration reform that both parties seemingly could agree on in the last few years had been attracting or retaining high-skilled immigrants.

But elections have consequences and after President Obama’s re-election—boosted by 71 percent of the Latino electorate—many Republicans have swiftly shifted course to support a more systematic overhaul.

Bipartisanship aside, the ultimate success of any reform effort will hinge on how changes are implemented at the local level.  Although reforming immigration is a federal issue, the myriad of state and municipal actions in recent years are a pressing reminder that localities are where the effects of immigration, both negative and positive, play out. 

National leaders should focus on the experiences of the country’s metropolitan areas, home to 95 percent of the nation’s immigrants.  Metropolitan areas are the engines of our national economy, our hubs of research and innovation, our centers of human capital, and our gateways of trade.  As such, they have been and continue to be on the front lines of the debate over immigration policy.  

Discussions about future admissions policies, for instance, should recognize that America is not one economy, but hundreds of metropolitan economies with distinctive labor market needs.  While college-educated immigrants now outnumber those without a high school diploma, skill levels vary greatly across the country, and many high-skilled immigrants face obstacles to obtaining jobs commensurate to their skills.  Metropolitan areas stand to gain much from partnerships that unlock the skills of immigrants with foreign credentials.  The senators’ proposal does include provisions for a more flexible scheme for low-skilled workers and extending green cards to post-baccalaureate students in STEM fields.  No doubt, many metropolitan areas will see short- and long-term benefits from this approach.

That kind of flexibility is important as the country’s labor needs and demographic characteristics will change over time as metropolitan economies grow and evolve. Employers in metropolitan areas from Silicon Valley to the Silicon Prairie have demonstrated significant demand for high-skilled temporary immigrant workers.  But admission categories and levels are in desperate need of modernization to meet our national and regional economic needs.  These include temporary (high- and low-skilled) immigrants as well as those admitted for permanent residency via either employment or family-based visas. Establishing mechanisms to monitor and modify immigrant admissions levels in response to changing local economic needs should be a priority for reform, too.

Metropolitan actions will also shape the success of essential reform efforts around legalization and enforcement to reduce future illegal immigration.  The senators’ proposal would put many immigrants without legal status on the road to citizenship, recognizing the value and justice of incorporating youth who arrived without knowingly violating our laws. It also acknowledges the vital role of immigrant workers in our agricultural sector, and offers others a probationary status while completing new security systems and reducing backlogs of legal immigrants in long queues.

National leadership will not only reduce the need for a patchwork of state and local policies aimed at cracking down on unauthorized immigrants, it will also enable metropolitan areas to better know who their residents are and to move forward with incorporating them fully into the civic, economic, and social life of the region.  How newcomers are received by and connect with their host communities impacts a region’s ability to grow in productive, inclusive, and sustainable ways. 

So as the president and Congress pursue what looks to be the most promising chance for immigration reform in years, let’s not forget that, like politics, immigration affects us all locally. Metropolitan leaders deserve a voice in the debate to ensure that their people, businesses, and economies benefit from an overdue overhaul of our nation’s immigration system.

See our immigration resources page for more key topics and relevant research and commentary.

      

 

 

The nation appears to be rising back from the demographic dead, albeit slowly, according to new Census Bureau estimates for the year ending in July 2012. The nadir was in 2010-2011 when the U.S. residential population grew by a mere 0.73 percent, the lowest rate other than in wartime, since 1937. It reflected a long stretch of national economic malaise and its demographic consequences, including reduced immigration, declines in the number of births, and the lowest domestic migration levels since the end of World War II.

The new numbers provide some sense of revival, however modest, with national growth rising to 0.75 percent. While low by historic standards, this uptick is accompanied by a rise in immigration and some thawing in the near frozen movement to previously hot destinations in the Sun Belt. This, when accompanied by a recently reported rise in interstate migration, suggests that 2012 could mark the beginning of a national demographic revival, though one which may never approach the rapid growth heydays of the baby boom dominated 1950s and 1960s.

The nation's recent uptick is nowhere near the more than 1 percent annual growth rates we achieved in the 1990s, but it stems five years of steady downturn. Rising international migration to levels not seen since the pre-recession year of 2005-2006 was the key ingredient. The 885,000 gain registered in 2011-2012 is over 100,000 greater than the previous year. While it’s still not close to the million a year gains we enjoyed earlier, the turnaround suggests renewed economic magnetism for immigrants, who contribute to both low and high skilled jobs.

The one demographic indicator which hasn’t revived with the new numbers is natural increase, the excess of births over deaths. This decline reflects even fewer births than in 2010-2011 and more deaths. The reduction in births may represent a continued reaction to the poor economy. However, the sustained aging of our population suggests that we cannot expect anything more than modest occasional gains in natural increase over time.

The other encouraging news from the new Census Bureau numbers is a long awaited uptick in migration-directed population growth in a number of Sun Belt states which bore the brunt of the recession and housing market downturns of the past five years. The poster children of this phenomenon are Nevada, Arizona and Florida, where growth levels plummeted in the 2006 to 2011 period. But Nevada and Florida experienced small growth upticks last year, coincident with the recently observed gains in interstate migration. Florida, on the cutting edge of this revival, already showed stronger gains last year. In fact 26 states experienced faster growth in 2011-2012 than in the previous year, of which 17 were in the Sun Belt including large parts of the Southeast and Mountain West. These included some of the fastest growing states: North Dakota, Texas, Wyoming, Utah, Nevada, Colorado, and Arizona. North Dakota is riding a wave of an oil boom, but most of the other states are rebounding from sharp slowdowns in the recent past.  

Much of this gain is related to renewed domestic migration.  For the first time in four years, Nevada registered a net in migration from other states. Arizona showed substantial migration gains, and Florida showed strong net in migration for the second straight year. Their migration gains are nowhere near peak levels of the mid 2000s (Arizona gained 133,000 in 2005-2006, compared with 34,000 in 2011-2012) but there are new, higher migration levels in 14 Sun Belt states, compared with last year. One constant is Texas. While also below its mid-decade peak, it led all states in domestic migration for the past seven years.

The new 2012 numbers suggest the beginning of a demographic turnaround, inspiring hope that 2013 may lead us back to something more normal. This, of course, depends on continued improvements in both the job and housing markets, which would lead to even greater migration flows to places that have taken a beating for the past half decade and new places that will capitalize on the rebound. Yet even with revived immigration and some uptick in births, our national growth rate is not destined to rise above 0.8 percent a year and could  eventually fall to 0.5 percent according to the Census Bureau’s recently released population projections.

      

 

 

America’s population is growing more racially diverse and, in 30 years, the nation will have a new majority—a majority composed of minorities. New projections from the Census Bureau suggest that the country’s white population is shrinking as the number of minorities rapidly grows. Senior Fellow William Frey says this change presents both challenges and opportunities to education policies, employment and politics. We should start preparing for the shift soon, he says.

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• America’s Changing Demographic Landscape: New Projections from the Census Bureau

      

 

 

Editor's Note: Based on new Census data, the U.S. Census Bureau recently released its first set of U.S. population projections for 2012-2060; the data reveals projections of the nation’s population by age, race and Hispanic origin for the next 50 years. William Frey further discusses these projections and how they will reverberate through U.S. politics, education system, and labor force. Also featured are William Frey ‘s related publications, which discuss and highlight key trends in the U.S. demographic shift.

In the wake of a presidential election that underscored the rising political clout of fast growing minority groups, the Census Bureau’s new population projections reiterate the trend.  These projections, the first to take account of the 2010 Census results, paint a picture of a nation that will become increasingly diverse, beginning at the bottom of the age distribution. 

Nationally, the new projection posits a “majority-minority” population by 2043, but for younger age groups, the tipping points will come much earlier: 2018 for children under age 18.  This reflects the recent growth of younger new minority populations including Hispanics, Asians, and those identifying as “multiracial.” It also reflects a stagnant, aging white population expected to by decline by 10 percent from 2012 to 2060.

The new projections anticipate slower national growth than the earlier 2008-based projections, by building in lower immigration and fertility assumptions, in keeping with recently observed shifts.  Thus, the national population benchmark of 400 million (up from 314 million today) is not expected to be reached until 2051, versus 2039 in the older projections.  Still the nation’s combined minority population is expected grow from 116 million in 2012 to 241 million in 2060. This translates into growth rates of 142 percent, 116 percent and 256 percent for the Hispanic, Asian, and multiracial populations, respectively. Blacks are expected to grow by 50 percent.

The white population in contrast is expected to increase from 197 million in 2012 to a 199 million peak in 2024, and then decline to 179 million in 2060.   This white peak population is smaller and occurs earlier than with the older projections, peaking at 207 million in 2031, reflecting an earlier onset of white natural decrease (deaths outnumbering births).

The increasingly shrinking white population is also a consequence of lower white fertility. This is partly responsible for the majority-minority tipping point for children moving up to the year 2018, compared with 2023 in the older projections.  As young minorities age, the majority-minority tipping points get reached in later years for subsequently higher ages.  The 45-64 age group doesn’t tip until 2051, and the over age 65 population is still majority white in 2060.

The older population stays whiter because the large and mostly white baby boom population just entering retirement beefs up those older ages.  Thus the biggest diversity transformation will continue to take place in the younger ages as white populations decline and minority populations gain.    Thus even in 2060 the white senior population is substantially less racially and ethnically diverse than younger age groups—especially children.

Of course, these shifts will reverberate through our politics, the education system, and our labor force.

Much heralded in the last election, the 18-to-29 age group, of which minorities made up a substantial component, will continue to be the most racially diverse.  As soon as the 2020 presidential election, this age group will be comprised of 47 percent minorities, including 23 percent Hispanics, many more of whom will be eligible voters than in the past election.  By 2028, minorities will be a majority of this population.  

There will be a continual transformation the nation’s age 5-to-17 school aged population which will become majority-minority in 2020.  At that time, Hispanics will comprise 26 percent, blacks 14 percent, and Asians 5 percent.  While many school systems in more diverse parts of the country have begun to adapt to student populations of different cultural backgrounds and languages spoken at home, these numbers make plain that school systems across the nation will stand on the front lines of change.

Our labor force aged population will not turn majority minority until 2038.  However, over the 18 year period, from 2012 to 2030, most of the largely white baby boom generation will be graduating out of those ages.  The 18-to-64 population will show a decline of 14 million whites, but a gain of 23 million minorities, of which 15 million are Hispanics—rendering minorities and especially Hispanics as the backbone of future labor force growth.

These projections also indicate the population will be aging, which along with a growing number of children will increase the number of dependents per worker.  Still the ages of these dependents will differ by racial and ethnic group.  For whites, the ratio of children to seniors falls below 1.0 as the number of white seniors exceeds white children in 2016 and throughout the projection period. But for Hispanics the ratio ranges from 5.6 to 1.7 over the projection period.  This reflects another way that the younger Hispanic population is faced with different kinds of concerns than the older white population, affecting their voting preferences and our national policies.

Overall, the new census projections place an exclamation point on the fact that we are becoming a more racially diverse society beginning with our youth.  Just like the postwar baby boom generation, which by virtue of its size and independent character, influenced all aspects of our economy and social institutions as it aged up the life cycle, so too will  today’s younger minority infused generation help to shape all aspects of our national life as they move into middle age.  It’s crucial for politicians, community leaders, and policymakers to pay attention to these changes as their decisions about how to incorporate this generation into the new American mainstream hold important implications for our nation’s future prosperity.

Video

• America’s Changing Demographic Landscape: New Projections from the Census Bureau

      

 

 

Tuesday’s election might someday be seen as a historic turning point in American politics: the last time a major party candidate could hope to win the presidency with a campaign aimed directly at the nation’s “mainstream” white population.

If that was Mitt Romney’s strategy, he succeeded wildly, gaining a nearly unprecedented Republican vote advantage over Democrats among whites, 59 percent to 39 percent. 

In the end though, he lost largely by ignoring the rising clout of the country’s minority population, including blacks, Asian Americans and especially Hispanics.    

The failure to reach out more to these groups went a long way toward costing him the presidency, leading to losses in rapidly growing swing states like Nevada, Colorado, Virginia, Florida, and almost North Carolina—states that that once stood squarely within the GOP’s Sun Belt wheelhouse. In each of these states, through enthusiastic turnout or stronger support, Hispanics made bigger contributions to Obama’s election than in 2008.

Romney’s blind spot was Obama’s strength. He continued his 2008 strategy of expanding the Democratic base in growing regions, including the Southeast and Mountain West, and among select demographic groups—including young people, college graduates and single women—after two elections of relative stagnation.

Yet, the part of this coalition that will bring its longest run benefit to the Democrats is the strong appeal to minorities, which Obama carried by a margin of roughly 80 percent in the past two elections.

That minorities accounted for a historic high (28 percent) of voters in Tuesday’s elections had much to do with his popular vote advantage. Minority representation will continue as millennials, whose eligible voters are 39 percent minority, grow older. More pronounced will be the effect of U.S.-born children, 46 percent minority (including 23 percent Hispanics), become voting age citizens.

Yet, as much as these trends hold future advantages, Democrats may also be developing their own blind spot in failing to cultivate greater support among whites, including those who older, married, and without college educations. The mere 39 percent support Obama received from whites on Tuesday was the lowest for a Democrat since 1992, when third party candidate Ross Perot drew votes away from both Bill Clinton and Republican George H. W. Bush; and the 20 point marginal loss to Republicans was the biggest since 1984 when Walter Mondale lost to Ronald Reagan.

Some of this widening white deficit can be attributed to extremely poor showings in states that are well outside Democratic reach, such as Mississippi and Alabama with Republican margins of 79 and 69 points respectively. Still, most states in regions where comparisons could be made showed worse Democratic support among whites on Tuesday than in the previous election. Democrats did worse among white demographic groups, including white millennials who switched from Democratic support in 2008 to GOP support (though overall millennials still favored Obama).

Of course, whites matter and, in fact, made a difference in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin where more modest Republican margins in the 5-17 percent range allowed strong black minority turnout to win those states for Obama. These are areas with a union tradition among working class whites, and where Romney’s personal appeal was not particularly strong. They are also relatively “white” states. So any reduction in Republican support will have a big impact and allow enthusiastic minority support for Democrats to triumph.

Similarly, reduced white margins will put in play previously safe Republican states in the Sun Belt. This was the case in 2008 when North Carolina landed in the Democratic column. Yet this time its increased white Republican margin put the Tar Heel State out of reach. Virginia, a state with a substantial northern born white population, kept its Republican margins lean this time, making it a continued Democratic player.  

More fast-growing states in the Southeast and Mountain West still lie in the province of Republicans (think Texas, Georgia, and Arizona), but their changing demography, coupled with greater Democratic appeal to whites, will gradually change this (witness Florida, Nevada and Colorado). Until those shifts occur, the mainstays of Democratic support will be mostly slow growing states in the industrial Midwest, New England and the urban coasts—with many of them largely white.

While it is true that demography is on the Democrats side long term, they cannot count on minorities alone to drive their train to victory in the next presidential cycle or two. 

It’s possible they dodged a bullet this time because of a Republican strategy which almost ignored minority interests. Because the most racially diverse part of the population is not yet old enough to vote and because voter participation is still highest among mostly white, older people (persons over age 45 cast 54 percent of Tuesday’s votes), Democrats will have to cater more to whites. On the other side of the aisle, Republicans will have to open their doors to Hispanics and other minorities as they become part of the new American “mainstream.”

      

 

 

Last year, for the first time in more than nine decades the major cities of the nation’s largest metropolitan areas grew faster than their combined suburbs. At least temporarily, this puts the brakes on a longstanding staple of American life—the pervasive suburbanization of its population—which began with widespread automobile use in the 1920s to the present day when more than half the U.S. population lives in the suburbs.

This reversal is identified in an analysis of newly released Census Bureau data for 2010-2011 and can be attributed to a number of forces.  Some are short- term and related to the post 2007 slowdown of the suburban housing market, coupled with continued high unemployment which has curtailed population mobility, now at a historic low.

However, at least some cities may be seeing a population renaissance based on efforts to attract and retain young people, families and professionals.

While these forces have led to lower suburban growth and increased city retention toward the end of the 2000s, the new data show a notable tipping point. Using the Brookings definition, core “primary cities” of the nation’s 51 metropolitan areas with populations exceeding one million, grew faster than the suburbs of those areas between July 2010-2011.  Cities grew at 1.1 percent while suburbs grew at 0.9 percent. This contrasts with suburban dominated growth in the 2000s, extending the pattern previous decades.

Among the 51 largest metro areas, primary city growth exceeded suburban growth in 27 over the last year, compared with just five in the 2000s decade (see table). Moreover, compared with annual average rates in the 2000-2010, 43 metropolitan areas showed faster primary city growth in 2010-11 while 43 registered slower growth in their suburbs.

Among the metropolitan areas with sharp sharpest city growth advantages are Washington D.C., Denver and Atlanta, where annual city growth ramped up for 2010-2011 and exceeded suburb growth by about 1 percent.  This contrasts with the 2000s decade when suburbs grew substantially faster than the suburbs in all three. As in most of the country, their suburbs disproportionately bore the brunt of the late 2000s housing collapse.  However, all three have important urban amenities and economic bases that are attractive to young people and other households now clustering in their cities.

While these are extreme examples of the recent reversal, city gains and suburban downturns are evident in all parts of the country, including the Northeast and Midwest

This is the case for New York, Philadelphia, Kansas City, and Columbus. In Chicago, Pittsburgh, Milwaukee, Rochester, and Minneapolis-St Paul, city declines in the 2000s turned to gains in 2010-2011.  At the same time, the city declines of the 2000s lost momentum in 2010-2011 in Detroit, Cleveland, Buffalo, St Louis, and Cincinnati.

Beyond the aforementioned city gainers over the last decade, other Sun Belt and Western examples are Austin, Seattle, Salt Lake City, Houston, Tampa-St Petersburg, Dallas, Memphis, and Birmingham.  In New Orleans, Miami, San Francisco, and San Jose both city and suburbs showed higher growth in 2010-2011 compared to their annual average in 2000-2010.

In fact, the only Sun Belt city growth slowdowns occurred where entire metropolitan areas were hard hit by last decade’s housing slowdown.  Among these are Las Vegas, Sacramento, Orlando, Jacksonville, Raleigh, and Charlotte.  In each case, both cities and suburbs registered lower growth in 2010-2011 than their annual average of the 2000s, with suburbs taking the greatest hit.

This new ‘tipping point” clearly has its origins in the downturns in the national housing and labor markets of the past five years. Young people, retirees, and other householders who might have moved to the suburbs in better times are unable to obtain mortgages or employment. Many remain stuck in rented or shared homes that are more often located in cities.  Yet what may look like a temporary lull in the broad sweep of suburban development may turn out to be an opportunity for some cities to showcase their oft cited lifestyle and cultural amenities to a new generation of residents and developers, so that in some regions a new version of the American Dream could take root.

      

 

 

Audrey Singer: This is the right thing to do. It affects a population that deserves legal status. They’ll be good for our future and good for our economy.

      

 

 

Last week, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano announced big news: Effective immediately, eligible undocumented youth are granted deferred action from deportation (a form of administrative relief).

This important and sensible step by the Obama administration provides immigrants under the age of 30 who have been in the United States for at least five years and are currently enrolled or have graduated from high school or have been honorably discharged from the U.S. military and do not have a felony or misdemeanor the right to live and work in the United States.  This change in policy is similar to the proposed Dream Act that would have offered legal status and a path to citizenship for the same population that was blocked by Congress in 2010.

With no hope at the end of the term for congressional action on immigration reform, this action is being lauded by immigrant advocates and supporters.   For the most part, these youth were brought to the United States as young children by their parents and have grown up and been educated in U.S. communities.  By their own accounts, they feel very American, and many have few ties to their country of birth.

Their joy and relief spilled into the streets,  including in front of the White House, where President Obama made a speech announcing the change in policy.

For their part, the Department of Homeland Security, which under this administration has had the greatest number of deportations ever on record, will be better able to concentrate resources on high priority removals.

This is a temporary fix to a more permanent problem, although deferrals can be renewed after two years.  By then perhaps Congress can get a bill through.  

Both parties have been thinking about this kind of reform in various forms. Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, bandied about as Republican vice presidential candidate, had been floating something similar to this administrative action in recent weeks and has cautiously signaled support for the policy change but also has said that it does not go far enough.  

It would be almost tragicomic if he convinced Republican candidate Mitt Romney to take it one step further.

Ultimately, the United States will want to bring this group in permanently.  As the U.S. labor force begins to shrink in just a few short years, most future growth will come from immigrants and their children, including these children.   They will now be pursuing education and jobs that will benefit them and our economy with some hope of a more permanent pathway.   

We have already invested in schooling these folks, let’s give them permanent relief in the form of U.S. citizenship and get a permanent return on our investment.

      

 

 

It’s been five years since we seriously attempted to reform U.S. immigration policy. Since then, partisan politics and extremist views have hijacked any sensibility on the topic, both in Congress and in many states and communities across the country. Five years ago, the Great Recession and housing crisis hadn’t yet wreaked economic havoc, crushing businesses, swelling unemployment, and threatening millions of homeowners. Back then, we had a lot less to worry about.

Reflecting those dramatic changes, immigration to the United States has slowed, but bitter immigration debates continue as economic anxiety grows.

The quest for job creation, innovation and high-skills has us looking at the growing number of international students differently these days, including the ones from countries that are now our greatest competitors. In the past, we were more likely to send them home. Today, we’d like to encourage more highly-educated immigrants to stay here and contribute to our own economy. 

These immigrants represent a contemporary “golden fleece” of sorts, and the clamor to offer them a permanent place in the U.S. economy is one area in the immigration debate where there is emerging bipartisan agreement.

Recognizing that our education system needs reform to better prepare U.S. workers to meet the needs of fast-changing, high-tech industries, there is increased accord that highly-educated foreigners can help our country bridge the gap.

When it comes to the importance of U.S.-educated immigrants, Congress gets it. Throughout the last year, numerous efforts to retain these immigrants in the United States have been introduced. The STAPLE Act, the INVEST Act, and just last month the STAR Act, SMART Jobs Act, and the Start-up Act 2.0, all slightly different, are attempts to open the door for permanent residency to U.S.-educated advanced science, technology, engineering, and math degree holders.

Fareed Zakaria gets it too. In this week’s TIME Magazine and on Sunday’s CNN prime-time special he discussed how the failure of the United States to retain these highly-educated workers reduces our competitiveness.

However, our immigration system--its successes, failures, and solutions for change--is multilayered. Fixing one problem might leave a gaping hole in another, and the reality is there is very little beyond high-skill immigrants our partisan leadership can agree upon.

Yet, there are at least two other immigrant groups that need attention so they can help move the United States ahead.

The first are low-skilled workers, those who specialize in jobs that may not require high levels of educational attainment. Yet, they are critical for growing the food we eat, cleaning our homes, offices, and yards and constructing the buildings around us, and caring for our sick and elderly. 

Many of these immigrant workers are already here, but more will be needed in key occupations slated for growth over the next 10 years.  Immigrants already play a large role as home health, personal care, and nursing aides; food preparation workers; child care workers; truck drivers and freight stock and material movers; and as construction, iron and rebar workers, and helpers to brick masons, carpenters, and pipe layers—making it likely we will depend on depend on immigrants to fill future openings.

The other, overlapping, group that must not be ignored if we are to remain economically strong is immigrants of all skill levels and their children already living in the United States who could use help getting to the next rung on the ladder. It is estimated that one out of every five college-educated immigrants is either underemployed in a low-skilled job or unemployed. Engaging these workers as well as other middle- and low-skilled immigrants already here promises to be a vital strategy for economic recovery and development.

Along with high-skilled immigrants, these immigrant workers and their children are tied to this country’s future economic prospects. In fact, demographers predict that over the next 40 years, immigrants and their children will be the only source of growth for the nation’s labor force, which would otherwise begin to shrink around 2015.

With an economy in flux like ours, we should ensure that as we bring in newcomers with specialized skills to fill in much needed gaps in our skilled workforce, we also cultivate those who are already here. 

      

 

 

A little-known yearly survey conducted by the Census Bureau gathers a wealth of information that helps guide everything from investments in highways and schools to business decisions about building supermarkets and department stores. The American Community Survey gathers neighborhood-level data that isn’t collected in the decennial Census, providing invaluable information about issues from immigration to income levels. Losing that ground-level view of the changes in American life year after year would be disastrous, says Senior Fellow William Frey.

Video

• William Frey: Why the American Community Survey Is Important

     

 

 

Editor's Note: In a Washington Post article, William Frey examines the cultural gap between white baby boomers and the growing minority youth population. Frey argues that although a cultural gap exists, it is this diverse youth population that the baby boomers will rely upon in retirement to keep paying into Social Security and Medicare.

Long associated in the popular mind with social and political change, the baby boomers are about to confront the biggest change in the American fabric in their lifetimes: our country’s new demographics. And they’re not ready.

Recent census numbers show that white babies are, for the first time, a minority of all births, putting an exclamation point on a trend that has been building for decades. A glance around schoolyards and community centers shows that children are becoming more racially and ethnically diverse than ever.

It is this diverse youth population that the largely white baby boomers will rely upon in their retirement years to keep paying into Social Security and Medicare.

Yet a Pew Research Center survey published in November showed only 23 percent of baby boomers regard the country’s growing population of immigrants as a change for the better. Forty-three percent saw it as a change for the worse. Almost half of white boomers said the growing number of newcomers from other countries represented a threat to traditional U.S. customs and values.

Older whites in general tend to be less favorable to more government programs, except Social Security, a significant change from their views in the late 1980s. Nowadays, younger minorities hold the views that boomers used to have, supporting government programs they see as important for their upward mobility

What's emerging is a cultural gap between the largest generation and the youngest.

That divide is created by the size and cultural dominance of the 78-million-member baby-boom generation. A generation that once expressed distrust for anyone older than 30 is now itself isolated from a younger, far more diverse America.

Boomers were born to parents whose upward mobility was aided by sweeping public programs such as the GI Bill. They benefitted from a wide array of programs supporting higher education and became a highly educated generation. Still, this generation — which will swell the ranks of senior citizens in the coming years — seems to be having trouble letting go, showing more than a little antipathy toward today's diverse, younger Americans.

Why is this happening? Part of the reason is that boomers grew up in an era when immigration was at its nadir. From 1946 to 1964, the share of immigrants was at the lowest level in the 20th century, and most of the immigrants were white Europeans. So boomers had minimal involvement with people other countries. Today, immigrants are 13 percent of our population, and they are far more diverse.

That created an isolation that persists. Among Americans older than 50, 76 percent are white, and the black population, at 10 percent, is the largest minority. Among those younger than 30, 55 percent are whites. Hispanics, Asians and other nonblack minorities account for 31 percent of that age group. Younger people are much more likely to be first- and second-generation Americans of non-European ancestry and able to speak English and other languages.

Yet, no matter the disconnect, the youngest and the oldest generations are inextricably linked.

The 2010 Census told us we would have faced an absolute decade-long decline in our under-18 population, had it not been for the gain of 5.5 million Hispanic and Asian youths. Between now and 2030, there will be an absolute decline of 10 million (mostly baby-boom) whites from the ranks of our working-age population.

Those ranks can be replenished only by the growing minority youth population. Much of this growth will occur because of births, regardless of immigration trends.

The contributions these people make will depend heavily on the opportunities they receive, particularly through education. Barriers are especially challenging for many minority children with talent and high aspirations, who continue to attend segregated, underfunded school systems. Currently, high school dropout rates for Hispanics are more than twice as high as those of non-Hispanic whites. More than a third of Hispanic and black children live in poverty.

Advancement of our young people into middle-class jobs at all skill levels is essential to future economic growth. That growth is, in turn, essential to our country’s ability to provide opportunities and social supports. Absent these investments, we are looking at a society whose members will be fighting over pieces of a shrinking pie.

Because of their numbers and clout, the voices of baby boomers will be heard. Let’s hope they, in turn, hear the message that their future, as well as the nation's, is tied to the well-being of today’s diverse, striving younger Americans.

     

 

 

"So if you haven't found a job yet: You're better off coming to the city than sitting on your parents' couch." Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Remarks at the Cornell University 2012 Convocation, May 27, 2012

As another college graduation season draws to a close, today’s New York Times reports the results of a small analysis we conducted on college degree attainment rates in metropolitan areas. We examined the share of adults age 25 and over in the 100 largest U.S. metro areas who held at least a bachelor’s degree in 2010, versus in 1970. (The Times’ website provides a table with the key data.)

It suggests a centrifugal force that is concentrating the nation’s college graduates into a set of metro areas that, like Bloomberg’s New York, are pulling farther away from the pack.

But first: Why is high college degree attainment important for a metropolitan area? The article notes that places in which lots of college graduates cluster exhibit patterns that, not surprisingly, are common to college graduates themselves: longer life expectancies, higher incomes, fewer single-parent families. Indeed, differences in adults’ rate of bachelor’s degree attainment explain nearly three-quarters of the variation in per capita income among metro areas in 2010. And higher regional income can translate into a higher tax base, better public services, and more private amenities.

The Times story emphasized one of the key findings of the analysis: as the overall American population grew more educated over that 40-year period, metro areas became less alike in their rates of college degree attainment. It reports the story from Dayton, OH, a metro area that ranked in the middle of the pack in 1970 (49^th out of 100), when it had a large supply of good jobs, at firms like NCR and GM, that didn’t require a college degree. Today, however, in the wake of significant manufacturing job losses, it ranks 85^th among the 100 largest metro areas, with just 24 percent of its adults holding a college degree, well below the metro average of 32 percent.

By contrast, the Chicago metro area—also a significant manufacturing center in 1970—had a very similar share of college graduates to Dayton that year. Yet it managed a large jump in educational attainment over the succeeding four decades, as its economy diversified and moved into high-value services, ranking the region 18^th overall by 2010 (34 percent of its adults hold a four-year degree).

These two places exemplified the broader divergence that occurred over time among metro areas in their college degree attainment rates. Some trends worth noting:

• In the 20 most highly educated metro areas in 1970, 16 percent of adults held a college degree. In those same metro areas in 2010, 38 percent of adults held a college degree, a 22 percentage-point increase. The 20 least educated metro areas in 1970 made substantial progress too—growing their college degree share from 9 percent to 25 percent—but that 16 percentage-point increase still left them farther behind the “smartest” metro areas by 2010.
• Seven of the ten most educated metro areas in 1970 remained among the ten most educated in 2010. Washington, D.C. held the number one spot in both years. Only four of the ten least educated metro areas in 1970 remained in that group in 2010, with Central Valley immigrant magnets such as Stockton, Modesto, and Bakersfield moving down the list during that time.
• Metro areas that enjoyed the most substantial jumps in their college degree attainment ranks included many, like Dayton, that lost a tremendous share of their manufacturing between 1970 and 2010. But because regions like Worcester, Baltimore, Charlotte, and Pittsburgh shed much of that base earlier than other manufacturing centers, they have had more time to build services-oriented economies in sectors like health, professional services, higher education, and finance, and to grow, attract, and retain highly educated populations to fill those jobs.
• When it comes to absolute increases in the share of adults with college degrees, size clearly matters. Among the 20 metro areas with the largest such increases from 1970 to 2010 were Boston, San Francisco, Washington, New York, Chicago, Seattle, Atlanta, and Denver. Indeed, the metro areas posting the largest gains are, on average, more than three times as large as the metro areas experiencing the smallest gains over that period.

So what’s going on? A mixture of powerful economic phenomena are boosting the value of living around other college graduates. Young educated workers will change jobs numerous times over their careers, which makes living in a large, “thick” labor market with diverse opportunities more appealing. The same force leads an increasing number of educated two-earner couples to these same sorts of large metro areas. Living in a highly educated metro area boosts one’s own acquisition of human capital and earning power, and leads to better employment outcomes for workers across the education spectrum.

This doesn’t mean, however, that it’s the end of the line for Dayton and other metro areas that are lagging in the race for highly educated workers. If nothing else, the experience of places like Pittsburgh indicates that progress is possible, even for metro areas that are not exactly migration magnets for young adults. But those places also provide a reminder that an upgrade in educational attainment doesn’t occur spontaneously, and often accompanies broader economic transition in the region.

Young people will still leave Dayton, as they do every major U.S. metro area, for opportunities in places like Charlotte and New York. Yet with respected higher educational institutions, a still-significant advanced manufacturing base, innovation hubs like Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, and a new sense of urgency, Dayton may have the fundamentals to compete more vigorously for a highly educated workforce in the coming decades, and the prosperity that it can bring.

     

 

 

Hethmon, general counsel for the Immigration Reform Law Institute, says immigration is “on track to change the demographic makeup of the entire country. You know, what they call ‘minority-majority….’ How many countries have gone through a transition like that—peacefully, carefully? It’s theoretically possible, but we don’t have any examples.” He also predicts that if the Supreme Court upholds the Arizona law, this country will experience “the classic environment for, if you will, sort of nativist-type sentiment.... It should explode at the states or—even better—[Congress] will be provoked to take action.”

His admission that the proliferation of state and local action on immigration policy is about ethnicity and culture rather than legality doesn’t stand alone. Kobach echoes, “Change the individual decisions of particular illegal aliens, and they will decide to leave the country.” Which particular illegal residents is he referring to? If this is indeed about legality shouldn’t he be focused on all illegal residents?

Consider the Prince William County, Va. anti-illegal immigrant ordinance (authored by Hethmon) passed in 2007. In our 2009 case study, we found that county residents who pushed for the law acknowledged that the (presumed illegal) status of their new neighbors was secondary to the changes they were seeing on the ground such as to the outward appearance of houses and property, many of which could have been addressed by local zoning enforcement.  But these residents supported the ordinance because it’s easier to focus on something as black and white as legal status than to face the difficult work of addressing neighborhood and cultural change.

Consider Kobach’s statement about our options for federal immigration reform: “We are constantly told that the only two options are massive roundups [of illegal immigrants] or an amnesty. But attrition through enforcement is the third way.”

He’s right and wrong. We are told that those are the only two options because people in his camp keep saying it. But it’s not true. The real third way is a legalization program allowing immigrants who have been living and working in the United States for several years and not committed other crimes to pay fines, learn English, and wait in line to become legal residents. If that is amnesty, then U.S. businesses and consumers have enjoyed a form of amnesty—cheap labor and cheap goods—all the years that our immigration system has failed to legally meet our demand for labor.

Hethmon acknowledges that the strategy of attrition is flawed: “What are you going to say to the people who say that you’re creating a climate of fear?” Hethmon recalled someone asking him recently. “I say, ‘Well, yeah, it’s not great. But it’s the best choice.

No, it’s not. The best choice is to set levels of legal immigration (both low- and high-skilled) that meet our demand for labor, enforce them at the border and the worksite, and then find a legal way for the millions of residents living in this country illegally to continue to contribute to our economy.

New analysis out this week from the Pew Hispanic Center showing that net migration from Mexico has dropped to zero suggests that the strategy of attrition has been a factor in some migrants’ decisions to leave the United States or not to come in the first place. But migration decisions are complicated, and the recession-driven drop in construction and service sector jobs north of the border combined with improving conditions in Mexico are other major contributors to this shift.

Figuring out how to integrate newcomers into our midst isn’t easy but we’ve been doing it—successfully by most counts—for generations. Hethmon argues that no society has yet succeeded in transitioning peacefully to “majority minority” status, but our history reveals that it’s possible here. Previous waves of immigrants —Southern and Eastern Europeans, Irish, and Chinese—have been vilified, yet today they are considered a positive part of the American story.  So much so, in fact, that those once considered “minorities” (i.e. certain European immigrants) are now counted in the “non-minority” category.

The statements reported in the Post piece—and similar ones by many others over our history—reveal that the unease over illegal immigration is, at its heart, cultural.  So let’s stop beating around the bush and get down to the difficult task of succeeding in this most important demographic experiment. If any country can do it, we can.

     

 

 

As U.S. job and housing markets stabilize and expand once again, population will likely return to interior Sun Belt metropolitan areas and suburban communities generally. However, the places that succeed in this new regime will probably not mirror the winners at either the middle or the end of the turbulent 2000s. Instead, metro areas with diversified, knowledge-based economies are likely to attract and retain population over the long run.

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An analysis of U.S. Census Bureau population data for the nation’s 100 largest metropolitan areas from 1980 to 2010 reveals that:

Metropolitan growth in both the Sun Belt and Snow Belt tapered in the 2000s, after accelerating in the 1990s. While 61 of the nation’s 100 largest metro areas grew faster in the 1990s than during the 1980s, 69 grew slower in the 2000s than in the 1990s. Southern and Western metro areas still grew fastest in the 2000s, but exhibited the greatest growth slowdowns from the prior decade.

Growth slowed considerably during the latter part of the 2000s, especially in “bubble economy” metropolitan areas. Population growth decelerated in 63 metro areas between the mid- and late-2000s, most markedly in mid-decade growth leaders such as Las Vegas, Phoenix, Boise City, Orlando, Cape Coral, and Lakeland.

Suburbs continued to grow more rapidly than cities in the 2000s, but growth rates for both types of places declined from their 1990s levels. Most cities and suburbs of the 100 largest metro areas grew during the 2000s. Yet 73 suburbs and 58 primary cities grew more slowly in the 2000s than the 1990s. Denver, Atlanta, Miami, Salt Lake City, and Las Vegas ranked among the metro areas in which suburban growth slowed the most.

Exurban and outer suburban counties experienced a population boom and bust in the 2000s. Aggregate population growth in counties near the metropolitan fringe peaked in 2005-2006, and declined more than half by 2009-2010. By contrast, growth rates in cities and dense inner suburbs rose in the latter half of the decade.

Hispanic dispersion to “new destination” metropolitan areas and suburbs dropped sharply in the late 2000s. Charlotte, Raleigh, Atlanta, Provo, and Las Vegas were among the metro areas experiencing the steepest declines in Hispanic growth after 2007 as construction jobs dried up.

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With the 2010 Census under its belt, the Census Bureau last week released the first set of state population counts for 2011. The news wasn’t heartening. After a decade in which the United States registered its lowest population growth rate since the Great Depression, the 0.73 percent rise in U.S. population from 2010 to 2011 marked the lowest annual growth rate since 1945.

This demographic low point coincides with the smallest immigration level since 1991, a noticeable downturn in fertility, and a continuing decline in internal migration. The weak labor market seems to be giving potential immigrants pause, and putting a hold on childbearing decisions. At the same time, the aging Baby Boom generation, now past its prime childbearing years, is contributing to a long-run trend of declining natural population increase.

While some might welcome slowed population growth, it is nonetheless a worrisome trend for a few reasons. First, the ability of the United States to maintain high and rising standards of living will depend in part on keeping a large share of its population in the workforce. That in turn requires growth to replenish our younger, working-age ranks. Second, those younger workers are crucial for the nation’s ability to provide needed support for a growing older population. And third, population growth itself is a reflection of our society’s optimism about current and future opportunities.

Perhaps just as troubling as the national growth slowdown is its geographic pervasiveness. Already, we knew that a handful of Sunbelt states were suffering from migration whiplash. Florida, Arizona, and Nevada in particular benefited greatly from the mid-decade housing bubble. Their explosive population growth turned out to be short-lived as housing values began to plummet in late 2006, recession set in, and foreclosures skyrocketed.

The new figures show, however, that the growth slowdown has spread beyond the bubble-then-bust areas. Growth has slowed sharply in states that seemed relatively immune from mid-decade housing gyrations like Georgia, North Carolina, and Colorado, as employment opportunities in a variety of industries contracted and mortgage credit began to dry up. Idaho, Utah, and Tennessee are exhibiting similar trends.

Even Texas, the hands-down winner of the 2010 Census sweepstakes, is registering notably slower growth than in recent years. The Lone Star state did lead all other states (though not the District of Columbia) in growth last year, but its top-ranked growth rate of 1.6 percent in 2010-2011 pales in comparison to Nevada’s top-ranked rate of 3.7 percent in 2005-2006. Back then, 13 states grew at a rate exceeding Texas’ rate last year. 

Population growth has even slowed considerably from earlier years of our economic doldrums. Thirty-six (36) states grew more slowly in 2010-2011 than in any of the previous three years. Of those, 21 are in South and West regions. Moreover, of the 24 states that gained in-migrants in the first year of the recession (2007-2008), 20 gained fewer last year, including Texas, North Carolina, and Colorado.

One noteworthy turnaround is the state of Florida, which registered unprecedented out-migration from 2007 to 2009. These first population estimates since then, which show a net in-migration to Florida of 108,000 from 2009 to 2011, coupled with an increased population growth rate, suggest that the state’s real estate-driven economic collapse may have bottomed out. At the same time, Arizona and Nevada show few signs of revival, with Nevada registering more net out-migration and slower population growth than in previous years.

A few states stand out for recent increases in population growth. North Dakota and Alaska, with strong energy-driven economies and low unemployment rates, ranked among the top seven states for population growth two years running. With widespread unemployment, people seem more willing to move to the few booming places on the map, irrespective of their unfamiliarity, distance, or climate.

The continued migration slowdown, coupled with economic woes that are spreading across broader parts of the country, are dampening population growth almost everywhere, including longstanding Sunbelt magnets. When the economy eventually does pick up, there will be a pent-up demand for moving both into and across the country. The latest numbers give frustratingly few clues as to where these new migrant draws will be.

Rank	State	2005-6	2006-7	2007-8	2008-9	2009-10	2010-11
1	District of Columbia	0.63	0.65	1.02	2.07	2.06	2.14
2	Texas	2.55	2.02	2.00	2.03	1.84	1.65
3	Utah	2.76	2.86	2.51	2.27	1.95	1.49
4	North Dakota	0.52	0.52	0.73	1.13	1.43	1.37
5	Colorado	1.91	1.77	1.79	1.69	1.55	1.36
6	Washington	1.81	1.43	1.56	1.60	1.16	1.28
7	Alaska	1.25	0.74	1.05	1.66	2.16	1.19
8	Florida	1.82	1.11	0.87	0.68	1.02	1.16
9	Arizona	3.26	2.30	1.83	1.00	1.11	1.08
10	Georgia	2.58	2.12	1.66	1.22	0.95	1.06
11	North Carolina	2.43	2.25	2.10	1.51	1.19	1.00
12	California	0.54	0.64	0.98	0.97	1.05	0.94
13	South Dakota	0.97	1.10	0.95	0.99	1.16	0.91
14	South Carolina	2.05	1.98	1.91	1.34	1.01	0.90
15	Virginia	1.28	1.01	1.06	1.18	1.25	0.90
16	Idaho	2.83	2.48	1.94	1.31	1.09	0.88
17	Oregon	1.60	1.40	1.24	1.06	0.80	0.87
18	Hawaii	1.32	0.45	1.26	1.09	1.26	0.84
19	Oklahoma	1.28	1.12	0.95	1.32	1.19	0.83
20	Delaware	1.67	1.45	1.39	0.89	0.90	0.81
21	New Mexico	1.55	1.42	1.03	1.30	1.43	0.79
22	Maryland	0.63	0.46	0.56	0.80	0.97	0.73
23	Montana	1.34	1.26	1.21	0.77	0.70	0.73
24	Tennessee	1.63	1.43	1.16	0.94	0.81	0.72
25	Nevada	3.72	3.11	2.02	1.17	0.74	0.70
26	Nebraska	0.64	0.61	0.73	0.91	0.98	0.68
27	Louisiana	-5.99	1.69	1.37	1.26	1.17	0.65
28	Minnesota	0.86	0.85	0.76	0.65	0.56	0.64
29	Wyoming	1.66	2.34	2.09	2.53	0.82	0.64
30	Arkansas	1.46	0.95	0.91	0.78	0.85	0.56
31	Kentucky	0.87	0.89	0.78	0.63	0.68	0.51
32	Massachusetts	0.11	0.34	0.58	0.75	0.61	0.49
33	Kansas	0.64	0.75	0.87	0.88	0.93	0.42
34	Indiana	0.86	0.74	0.71	0.54	0.48	0.40
35	Iowa	0.61	0.56	0.58	0.53	0.56	0.40
36	Alabama	1.29	0.95	0.97	0.84	0.58	0.36
37	New York	-0.15	0.15	0.42	0.49	0.44	0.36
38	Wisconsin	0.57	0.59	0.54	0.50	0.38	0.35
39	Mississippi	-0.03	0.80	0.66	0.37	0.38	0.28
40	Missouri	0.91	0.77	0.62	0.63	0.59	0.25
41	New Jersey	0.11	0.19	0.38	0.51	0.53	0.24
42	Illinois	0.27	0.41	0.40	0.39	0.36	0.21
43	Pennsylvania	0.49	0.42	0.38	0.43	0.34	0.20
44	Connecticut	0.30	0.28	0.52	0.46	0.43	0.15
45	New Hampshire	0.76	0.32	0.26	0.01	0.05	0.11
46	Vermont	0.27	0.09	0.11	0.11	0.18	0.08
47	Maine	0.37	0.26	0.26	-0.07	-0.15	0.06
48	Ohio	0.16	0.17	0.13	0.12	0.06	0.06
49	West Virginia	0.41	0.34	0.34	0.41	0.34	0.05
50	Michigan	-0.15	-0.35	-0.54	-0.46	-0.24	-0.01
51	Rhode Island	-0.45	-0.54	-0.22	-0.13	-0.07	-0.12
	United States	0.97	0.96	0.95	0.88	0.83	0.73

     

 

 

A cascade of statistics from the 2010 Census and other Census Bureau sources released during 2011 show a nation in flux—growing and moving more slowly as it ages, infused by racial and ethnic minorities and immigrants in its younger ranks, and struggling economically across a decade bookended by two recessions. The nation’s largest metropolitan areas, and especially their suburbs, stood on the front lines of America’s evolving demographic transformation. Following is a slideshow of the five most important findings to emerge from our State of Metropolitan America analyses over the past year. Additional insight from co-author William H. Frey is available in a related video and at time.com.

Q&A with William Frey: America's Future Defined by Diversity »

The 2000s marked the slowest decade of population growth in the United States in 70 years, slightly under the rate from the 1980s. The country grew by 9.7 percent, adding 27.3 million people from 2000 to 2010. The pullback from rapid 13.2 percent growth in the 1990s reflects slower U.S. economic growth across the decade, reduced immigration, and the aging of baby boomers out of their prime child-bearing years.

As in previous decades, the Sun Belt accounted for most of the nation’s population growth in the 2000s. Southern and Western states added 23 million people, compared to just 4 million added in the Northeast and Midwest. Las Vegas and Raleigh were the fastest-growing large metro areas (42 percent), while greater Detroit and Youngstown lost residents. And suburbs continued to grow faster than cities. However, many of these patterns began to shift in the late 2000s amid a housing market crash that hit fast-growing Sun Belt and outer suburban locations especially hard.

What it means

Despite the recent decade’s slowdown, America remains one of the fastest-growing developed nations. We added the equivalent of more than three-quarters of Canada’s population in just 10 years, helping to replenish our workforce and offset the costs of an aging society. Population growth will continue to vary greatly across the national and metropolitan maps, but ongoing restructuring in the U.S. economy and housing market may reduce somewhat the imbalances from the 2000s in the years to come.

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America recorded another historic demographic lull in the 2000s, as the share of U.S. residents moving dropped to a postwar low of 11.9 percent in 2008, and then again to 11.6 percent in 2011. During the baby boom of the 1950s, by contrast, nearly one-fifth of Americans changed residences each year. The long-term trends toward higher homeownership and the aging of the baby boomers and the short-term dynamics of deep recession, depressed housing prices, and stringent credit policies produced a record level of rootedness among American households.

The migration slowdown reversed in part the tide that swept many Americans into Sun Belt areas like Las Vegas and Orlando during the first half of the decade. One upshot is that population losses from many former “feeder” areas, such as New York, Los Angeles, and Boston have slowed considerably, especially among migrants with college degrees. Meanwhile, Austin, Dallas, and Denver displaced Riverside, Phoenix, and Atlanta from the list of metro areas gaining the most young migrants at the end of the decade.

What it means

Americans move around more than their counterparts in other developed countries, but a lot less than they used to. Some fear that in the short run, homeowners are stuck in places with too few jobs, and not able or willing to move to places with healthier labor markets. Longer run, and perhaps more importantly, states and metro areas that relied too heavily on in-migration for growth must re-calibrate their economies to create better, more diverse job opportunities for current and future residents.

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Non-whites, especially Hispanics and Asians, accounted for the overwhelming majority (92 percent) of U.S. population growth in the 2000s. In the nation’s 100 largest metro areas, whites now account for 57 percent of population, down from 71 percent in 1990. Immigration drove some of this increasing racial and ethnic diversity, with the foreign-born numbering 40 million nationwide by 2010, nearly 13 percent of U.S. population. The youngest Americans herald our coming transition to a “majority minority” nation; 50 percent of infants under age one are now non-white.

As racial/ethnic minority and immigrant populations continue to grow, they are also dispersing into new locations across and within metropolitan America. In 2010, minorities made up more than half the population in 22 large metro areas, up from 14 in 2000 and just five in 1990. African American population in particular is returning to the South, with three-quarters of the group’s U.S. gains occurring in that region in the 2000s. And for the first time, a majority of every major racial and ethnic group in large metro areas lives in the suburbs, as segregation—while still high—continues to decline.

What it means

Large metro areas, and increasingly their suburbs, stand at the forefront of America’s transformation into a multiethnic society. How they respond to and manage that shift, especially the social and economic opportunities they provide to a highly diverse population of families with children, will establish the course for our nation’s well-being over the coming decades. Rapid growth in the immigrant population in some parts of the country produced late-decade policy backlashes that could threaten these places’ longer-run economic well-being.

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The oldest members of the baby boom generation, born between 1946 and 1964, entered seniorhood at the end of the 2000s as the youngest members crossed fully into middle age. As a result, America’s 45-and-over population grew more than 18 times as fast as its under-45 population in the 2000s, and more than half the nation’s voting-age population is at least 45 years old. Boomer aging, and delays in marriage and childbearing among younger groups, account for the fact that only 20 percent of U.S. households today are married couples with children under 18, down from twice that share in 1970.

While all parts of the country are aging, places are increasingly divided by growth or decline in their youth. Under-45 populations in 36 of the largest 100 metro areas, particularly places like Buffalo and Cleveland, declined in the 2000s even as they rose by at least 10 percent in 29 metro areas like Raleigh and Las Vegas. Boomer aging in place is also transforming suburbia, where 40 percent of residents are age 45 and older, compared with 35 percent in cities. Significant racial and ethnic differences by age further define these patterns in some parts of the country; less than 40 percent of Arizona’s children are white, compared with more than 80 percent of its seniors.

What it means

The older population is growing everywhere, and a host of public and private services will be adapted to an aging population in the decades to come. Areas that are also gaining younger populations may have a resource advantage in responding to those changes, compared to rapidly aging northern states and metro areas. Yet because the former areas have more racially and ethnically diverse young people, they too may face challenges in managing competition for scarce public resources between predominantly white seniors and minority families with children.

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The 2000s marked the first census decade on record in which real median household income declined. The typical household earned $50,046 in 2010, down 8.9 percent from 2000. And the share of people living in poverty hit 15.3 percent, the highest level since 1993. The negative trends surely reflect the deep recession affecting the country in the late 2000s, but also the limited progress experienced by average households and the poor during the years in which the overall economy grew.

Economic pain was widespread across the nation. Nearly all (91) of the 100 largest metro areas ended the decade with lower median incomes than in 2000. Sun Belt areas on the front lines of the housing market collapse (Orlando, Las Vegas, Riverside), manufacturing metros (Indianapolis, Cleveland), and many parts of the Southeast (Birmingham, Nashville) ranked among the places experiencing large poverty increases during, and sometimes even before, the Great Recession. Suburbs shared much more in the rise of metropolitan poverty, with their poor residents growing 53 percent over the decade, a shift driven partly by the suburban growth of new immigrant populations.

What it means

Census 2000 captured American households at a high-water mark economically, a far different situation than they faced in 2010. Economic growth strategies for the coming decade must place greater emphasis on achieving shared prosperity that lifts incomes for a broad segment of households. With unemployment projected to remain high for some time, many parts of the country will confront higher fiscal and social burdens associated with poverty, including concentrated poverty, for the foreseeable future. All metro areas, meanwhile, must continue to adapt a traditionally city-focused social services infrastructure for helping the poor to the reality of region-wide needs.

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Census: Key Findings in 2011

     

 

 

This week, Congress took a small step in reforming America’s out-dated immigration system. In H.R. 3012 the House voted to end country limits for employment-based visas, which should increase the number of highly-skilled workers from India and China granted green cards.

The bill would also raise per-country limits for green card applicants for certain family-based visas.

“The Fairness for High-Skilled Immigrants Act of 2011” does not raise the number of visas issued annually, but, by removing the limit on the number of visas issued to individuals from any one country, would begin to reduce the backlog of Indian and Chinese immigrants who currently have longer waiting times than other nationalities. Not coincidently, immigrants from these countries hail from the two most populous nations in the world, with economies that have risen as global competitors over the last decade. They also have some of the highest levels of educational attainment and income among immigrants in the United States. Bottom line: the migrants who would most benefit from this bill are viewed as the cream of the crop.

By now, many have given up on a major overhaul of U.S. immigration policy but the Great Recession has pushed lawmakers and advocates to look for ways to align America’s economic interests with targeted reforms. 

The overwhelming support from both parties in the House (by a vote of 389 to 15) illustrates that Congress recognizes the significant role that high-skilled migrants play in America and the global economy. Whether they are creating new innovative technologies, providing needed technical skills for American companies, or starting new enterprises, they serve as valuable bridges between regional, national, and global economies. 

Lawmakers also recognize the human side of migration and that family unification is a central pillar of the American immigration system. The legislation passed by the House includes a provision that raises the country limits that would benefit Mexican and Filipino immigrants first. Would-be immigrants from those two countries—the source of the largest immigrant populations in the United States—have the lengthiest backlogs for family-based visas. This provision would bring together families more quickly.  

Usually, immigration bills are fodder for partisan clashes as Democrats and Republicans tend to see the issue differently. In the case of H.R. 3012, this is a tweak in the right direction for both parties.

Despite this symbolic show of unity in the House, the backlog of reforms necessary to bring the immigration system into the 21st century remains enormous. America has been waiting longer for an overhaul of immigration policy than many of the potential beneficiaries of HR 3012. 

We hope this is a sign that Congress is willing to work together—even if it’s one baby step at a time—to tackle the immigration reform backlog.

     

 

 

Americans used to be a nomadic bunch, uprooting themselves for better jobs, better housing, and better lives, but new Census data again confirms a trend first observed at the nadir of the recession: We’re becoming a nation of homebodies, and not by choice.

Census Bureau data released this week reveal that the rate of Americans moving reached another new postwar low in 2011. The mutually reinforcing constraints of a stalled housing market on the ability to move for employment bodes poorly for economic recovery, though the slowdown may also provide windfall population gains for some places that need them.

The new statistics indicate that just 11.6 percent of U.S. residents moved between 2010 and 2011, down from 12.5 percent the previous year, and the lowest rate since 1948. To put this in proper perspective: the 35.1 million people who changed residence last year is the lowest number since 1960, when the nation’s population was about 40 percent smaller.

The new low point represents a confluence of two different troubling patterns. The first, reported earlier, is the sharp drop-off in “longer distance” migration rates (both between counties and between states) after 2007. That dip reflects the impact of the recession and the housing market crash. The historically low share of Americans moving across county lines remained at 3.5 percent for the second straight year.

The second pattern is a new historic low point for local within-county residential movement. The drop in local mobility follows a gradual long-term decline associated with the aging of the population and higher homeownership levels in recent decades. Yet, the new rate of 7.7 percent is lower than the previous low in 2007-08, and well below rates in the 9 to 10 percent range that prevailed during the 1990s. The lackluster housing market and more stringent credit policies help explain the new low. Indeed, the small uptick in this rate during the two previous years can be attributed, in part, to the reshuffling of households resulting from foreclosures and “doubling up.”

Additionally, the new numbers show historically low local and long distance migration rates for two key groups. Adult college graduates, the lifeblood of the national labor market, are not finding jobs in new places, and appear to be staying in their homes. Meanwhile, young adults in their early 20s—newly graduated from college or starting out in life—are moving much less, especially between counties, than just five years ago.

The newly flat-footed American population continues to avoid former migrant magnets in the Sun Belt. In metropolitan Phoenix and Las Vegas, the housing bubble coincided with unusually high mid-decade population gains from migration. As these flows dissipated, prior “feeder areas” in California and other parts of the West enjoyed a population windfall.

Similar dynamics fueled, then cooled, movement to southeastern magnets like Orlando and Atlanta from metropolitan New York and other parts of the Northeast and the Midwest.

Yet the slowdown has also affected broader parts of the nation. Among 31 states that gained migrants during the pre-recession 2005-07 period, 22 either gained fewer migrants, or lost migrants in the 2008-10 period. Among the 20 states (including the District of Columbia) that lost migrants in the former period, 13 either lost fewer or actually gained migrants in the latter period, including California, New York, and Massachusetts (see Table).

A foreboding trend for national economic recovery thus presents an opportunity for former “exporter” states and metropolitan areas like Los Angeles and New York to convince their newfound, if reluctant, residents to remain, even after migration opportunities to seemingly more attractive locales again open up. Indeed, this audition period could be a long one if the current migration slowdown persists.