Growth of Multiple-Race Population

The US Census Bureau released a brief today detailing The Two or More Races Population, 2010:

"The population reporting multiple races (9.0 million) grew by 32.0 percent from 2000 to 2010, compared with those who reported a single race, which grew by 9.2 percent. Overall, the total U.S. population increased by 9.7 percent since 2000, however, many multiple-race groups increased by 50 percent or more.

The first time in U.S. history that people were presented with the option to self-identify with more than one race came on the 2000 Census questionnaire. Therefore, the examination of data from the 2000 and 2010 censuses provides the first comparisons on multiple-race combinations in the United States.

An effective way to compare the multiple-race data is to examine changes in specific combinations, such as white and black, white and Asian, or black and Asian. 'These comparisons show substantial growth in the multiple-race population, providing detailed insights to how this population has grown and diversified over the past decade,' said Nicholas Jones, chief of the U.S. Census Bureau’s Racial Statistics Branch...

There are 57 possible mul­tiple-race combinations involving the five race categories and the category 'some other race.' The report presents statistics for each of the 57 mul­tiple-race combinations.

California, Texas, and New York are the three states with the largest multiple-race populations (over half a million people or more)."

You can read the full report, including more on the definitions of race & ethinicity categories used by the US Census, here.