There’s been a jump in the number of African-American children born in the United States between 2000-2022, according to a study from the Pew Center. — AP FILE PHOTO
by Sherry Stone
Philadelphia Tribune Staff Writer
The Black population in the United States has grown by 11 million people in roughly two decades, according to the latest study from the Pew Research Center.
There was a 32% increase between the years 2000-2022, bringing the Black population up from 36.2 million to 47.9 million people. The study analyzed recent data from the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey.
The seeming population explosion is based upon a a few things – an increase in the birth rate among Black women between the ages of 15 to 44; a rise in interracial marriages; a willingness for mixed raced people to identify as Black or a percentage of Black on Census forms and a rise in immigration from African and Caribbean countries, according to Mark Lopez, director of Race and Ethnicity Work at the Pew Center.
The number of foreign-born Black Americans has nearly doubled since the year 2000, rising from 2.4 million people to 5.1 million, making foreign-born U.S. Blacks about 11% of the nation’s population.
“The African American population is not the fastest growing, but they are growing at least as fast as the rest of the nation,” Lopez told The Tribune. “The nation’s Asian population, for example, has grown more quickly. The nation’s white population has grown a little more slowly. As the nation has grown, so has the Black population. Since 2000, Blacks have represented about 13 to 14% of the U.S. population of the nation. The number of Americans who say they are two or more races has gone up—and there has been a rise in the inter-race marriage rate.
Also, there have been more people saying they are both Black and Hispanic on census forms.”
In terms of the birth rate for African-Americans, the general fertility rate among Black females ages 15-44, was 6.1% in 2022, according to the study.
“The COVID-19 pandemic is not the reason that would only have been a factor the past few years. The national Black population was growing before that time across the nation,” Lopez said. “The Black population looks a lot like other groups. The fertility rate was a little higher for Latinos, and a little lower for white Americans.”
The study also found African-Americans are younger, overall, than other groups. Roughly, 30% of the entire Black population was below the age of 20, while just 12% were 65 or older.
Just under half the Black U.S. population (45%) was younger than age 30 in 2022, and the median age for Blacks in America was just 32.
By comparison, according to Lopez, the median age for white, non-Hispanic Americans was 43-44. The median age for U.S.-born Latinos was about 20-years-old, he said.
“When we take a look at the national Black population—they are relatively young compared to the nation’s white population,” Lopez said. “For many young Black Americans they play an important role helping to diversify the workforce.”
As for geography, more than half of the nation’s Black population (56%) lived in the South in 2022. Another 17% lived in the Midwest and Northeast and 10% lived in the West two years ago. Texas has the highest African American population in the nation with 4.2 million people, followed by Florida, with 3.9 million people and Georgia with 3.7 million African Americans.
In the metropolitan cities like New York, including parts of New Jersey and Pennsylvania, there were 3.6 million Black residents in 2022; the Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington area was among the ten most-populated areas for Blacks in the U.S. with 1,300,000 African Americans, Lopez said.
According to Kou Dolo, communications manager for ACANA, short for the African Cultural Alliance for North America, a non-profit organization that serves African and Caribbean immigrants in the Philadelphia area, “there are over 120,000 African and Caribbean immigrants from some 35 different countries living in the greater Philadelphia region and an overwhelming majority of them live in Southwest Philadelphia.”
ACANA provides access to social and legal services, community development programs, health services, organizing African arts and culture events and an array of many other services.
The PEW study updated data for African Americans in the U.S. in areas like education, marriage and religion.
In 2022, 49% of Black households in the U.S. earned less than $50,000, while 51% of the Black population earned $50,000 or more. One third of African-American households earned $75,000 or more and 22% of Black households reported $100,000 or more in income that year.
In terms of marriages and children, 39% of Black households were married couples. By comparison, about 71% of U.S. households were married in 2020, according to the census. According to PEW, 31% of African American households were headed by single women, and 5% were headed by single men.
Education-wise, 26% of African Americans age 25 and older have a bachelor’s degree or more – 16% held a bachelor’s degree and 10% held advanced degrees. About 32% of African Americans in the nation have completed some college. Two-thirds of African Americans, or 66%, identify themselves as Protestant.
sstone@phillytrib.com 215-893-5781
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