Birth Rates Reach All-Time Low among Teens

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced that birth rates for U.S. teens have reached all-time lows across age and ethnic groups. The birth rate fell 9% from 2009 to 2010 among women aged 15 to 19 and the rate dropped 44% from 1991 to 2010. The number of babies born to women aged 15 to 19 was 367,752, the lowest since 1946. From 2007 to 2010, only three states – Montana, North Dakota, and West Virginia – did not experience a decrease in teen birth rates. Birth rates among minorities have dropped off sharply since 1991, but disparities remain, with non-Hispanic black, Hispanic, and American Indian or Alaska Native teens continuing to possess higher birth rates than the national average. This stands in stark contrast, however, to Asian or Pacific Islander teens, whose birth rate was only 10.9 births per 1000 women.

Numbers in Poverty Up; Minorities Hardest Hit As Wealth Disparity Widens

According to a recent report from the Census Bureau, 2.6 million more Americans fell into poverty in 2010; the 46.2 million people in poverty signaled both "the fourth consecutive annual increase and the largest number in the 52 years for which poverty estimates have been published." The report also contained disturbing news regarding the middle class: the New York Times writes that "median household incomes fell last year to levels last seen in 1997."

Lawrence Katz, an economics professor at Harvard, dubbed the period "a lost decade." He told the Times that this "was the first time since the Great Depression that median household income, adjusted for inflation, had not risen over such a long period," and he went so far as to say that "the median family is in worse shape than it was in the late 1990s." Adjusted for inflation, the median household income dropped to $49,445, a decline of 2.3 percent and seven percent below the high of $53,252 in 1999.

15.1 percent of Americans were below the poverty line ($22,314 for a family of four) last year, the highest percentage since 1993. And as the Times points out, the gap between the wealthy and poor continued to grow: "Median household income for the bottom tenth of the income spectrum fell by 12 percent from a peak in 1999, while the top 90th percentile dropped by just 1.5 percent."

The rising poverty rate was most severe for blacks and Hispanics. 27 percent of blacks were in poverty in 2010, up from 25 percent in 2009, and 26 percent of Hispanics--up from 25 percent in 2009--were also below the line. 9.9 percent of whites were in poverty in 2010, as compared with 9.4 percent in 2009. Among Asians, however, the poverty rate remained steady at 12.1 percent.

According to the Times, most economists agree that "joblessness was the main culprit pushing more Americans into poverty." And with President Obama recently proposed jobs bill, analysts say the Census report could swing support either way. As the Times reports, "the bleak numbers could help [Obama] make his case for urgency...[b]ut they could also be used against him by Republican opponents seeking to highlight economic shortcomings on his watch."

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Increasing Diversity in Largest Metros

SSDAN and Brookings Institution demographer Bill Frey analyzed data from Census 2010 and found that minorities comprise the majority in 32 of the 50 largest metro areas in America. Many cities, especially in the South and Southwest, are plurality black or plurality Hispanic, while others remain plurality but not majority non-Hispanic white. Cities in the great plains tend to remain majority white.

Within cities, minorities are increasingly following whites into the suburbs with 35% of suburban residents now minorities. Heavily concentrated in metro areas, Hispanics make up 26% of city dwellers, 17% of suburbanites and 16% of the population overall. Blacks make up 22% of city dwellers, 10% of suburbanites and 12% of the population overall. The Census Bureau itself predicts that the nation as a whole will be majority-minority by 2042 due to heavy immigration from Central America and higher birthrates among Hispanics than among non-Hispanic whites.

This graphic from the Wall Street Journal shows the plurality ethnic groups in the 100 largest metro areas in the United States. ZM cf