In 2024, white Americans remained the largest racial group in the United States, numbering just over 254 million. Black Americans followed at nearly 47 million, with Asians totaling around 23 million. Hispanic residents, of any race, constituted the nation’s largest ethnic minority. Despite falling fertility, the U.S. population continues to edge upward and is expected to reach 342 million in 2025. International migrations driving population growth The United States’s population growth now hinges on immigration. Fertility rates have long been in decline, falling well below the replacement rate of 2.1. On the other hand, international migration stepped in to add some 2.8 million new arrivals to the national total that year. Changing demographics and migration patterns Looking ahead, the U.S. population is projected to grow increasingly diverse. By 2060, the Hispanic population is expected to grow to 27 percent of the total population. Likewise, African Americans will remain the largest racial minority at just under 15 percent.

In 2024, **** percent of Black people living in the United States were living below the poverty line, compared to *** percent of white people. That year, the overall poverty rate in the U.S. across all races and ethnicities was **** percent. Poverty in the United States The poverty threshold for a single person in the United States was measured at an annual income of ****** U.S. dollars in 2023. Among families of four, the poverty line increases to ****** U.S. dollars a year. Women and children are more likely to suffer from poverty. This is due to the fact that women are more likely than men to stay at home, to care for children. Furthermore, the gender-based wage gap impacts women's earning potential. Poverty data Despite being one of the wealthiest nations in the world, the United States has some of the highest poverty rates among OECD countries. While, the United States poverty rate has fluctuated since 1990, it has trended downwards since 2014. Similarly, the average median household income in the U.S. has mostly increased over the past decade, except for the covid-19 pandemic period. Among U.S. states, Louisiana had the highest poverty rate, which stood at some ** percent in 2024.

In the U.S., the share of the population living in poverty fluctuated significantly throughout the six decades between 1987 and 2023. In 2023, the poverty level across all races and ethnicities was 11.1 percent. Black Americans have been the ethnic group with the highest share of their population living in poverty almost every year since 1974. In 1979 alone, Black poverty was well over double the national average, and over four times the poverty rate in white communities; in 1982, almost 48 percent of the Black population lived in poverty. Although poverty rates have been trending downward across all ethnic groups, 17.8 percent of Black Americans and 18.9 percent of American Indian and Alaskan Natives still lived below the poverty line in 2022.

In 2022, there were about 4.15 million Black families in the United States with a single mother. This is an increase from 1990 levels, when there were about 3.4 million Black families with a single mother.

Single parenthood

The typical family is comprised of two parents and at least one child. However, that is not the case in every single situation. A single parent is someone who has a child but no spouse or partner. Single parenthood occurs for different reasons, including divorce, death, abandonment, or single-person adoption. Historically, single parenthood was common due to mortality rates due to war, diseases, and maternal mortality. However, divorce was not as common back then, depending on the culture.

Single parent wellbeing

In countries where social welfare programs are not strong, single parents tend to suffer more financially, emotionally, and mentally. In the United States, most single parents are mothers. The struggles that single parents face are greater than those in two parent households. The number of families with a single mother in the United States has increased since 1990, but the poverty rate of black families with a single mother has significantly decreased since that same year. In comparison, the poverty rate of Asian families with a single mother, and the percentage of white, non-Hispanic families with a single mother who live below the poverty level in the United States have both been fluctuating since 2002.

The statistic shows the share of U.S. population, by race and Hispanic origin, in 2016 and a projection for 2060. As of 2016, about 17.79 percent of the U.S. population was of Hispanic origin. Race and ethnicity in the U.S. For decades, America was a melting pot of the racial and ethnical diversity of its population. The number of people of different ethnic groups in the United States has been growing steadily over the last decade, as has the population in total. For example, 35.81 million Black or African Americans were counted in the U.S. in 2000, while 43.5 million Black or African Americans were counted in 2017.

The median annual family income in the United States in 2017 earned by Black families was about 50,870 U.S. dollars, while the average family income earned by the Asian population was about 92,784 U.S. dollars. This is more than 15,000 U.S. dollars higher than the U.S. average family income, which was 75,938 U.S. dollars.

The unemployment rate varies by ethnicity as well. In 2018, about 6.5 percent of the Black or African American population in the United States were unemployed. In contrast to that, only three percent of the population with Asian origin was unemployed.

African American archaeology has, for 40 years now, contributed an impressive amount of new information about undocumented conditions and the day-to-day lives of chattel slaves. That same archaeological record provides a better understanding of the processes involved in the creation and maintenance of creole cultures spawned by the African diaspora.This report is concerned with archaeological information about the creation and use of space at 19th century slave settlements on Sapelo Island, Georgia (Figure 1), with an emphasis on settlement layout and domestic architecture. From an anthropological perspective, it is more basically about an enslaved community who developed a creole culture known as Geechee. As a prelude to the following discussion, it is important to reiterate a fundamental point made in 1976 by Sidney Mintz and Richard Price (1992:14). "[T]he Africans in any New World colony in fact became a community and began to share a culture only insofar as, and as fast as, they themselves created them."

In the fiscal year of 2019, 21.39 percent of active-duty enlisted women were of Hispanic origin. The total number of active duty military personnel in 2019 amounted to 1.3 million people.

Ethnicities in the United States The United States is known around the world for the diversity of its population. The Census recognizes six different racial and ethnic categories: White American, Native American and Alaska Native, Asian American, Black or African American, Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander. People of Hispanic or Latino origin are classified as a racially diverse ethnicity.

The largest part of the population, about 61.3 percent, is composed of White Americans. The largest minority in the country are Hispanics with a share of 17.8 percent of the population, followed by Black or African Americans with 13.3 percent. Life in the U.S. and ethnicity However, life in the United States seems to be rather different depending on the race or ethnicity that you belong to. For instance: In 2019, native Hawaiians and other Pacific Islanders had the highest birth rate of 58 per 1,000 women, while the birth rae of white alone, non Hispanic women was 49 children per 1,000 women.

The Black population living in the United States has the highest poverty rate with of all Census races and ethnicities in the United States. About 19.5 percent of the Black population was living with an income lower than the 2020 poverty threshold. The Asian population has the smallest poverty rate in the United States, with about 8.1 percent living in poverty.

The median annual family income in the United States in 2020 earned by Black families was about 57,476 U.S. dollars, while the average family income earned by the Asian population was about 109,448 U.S. dollars. This is more than 25,000 U.S. dollars higher than the U.S. average family income, which was 84,008 U.S. dollars.

Lynching in the United States is estimated to have claimed over 4.7 thousand lives between 1882 and 1968, and just under 3.5 thousand of these victims were black. Today, lynching is more commonly associated with racial oppression, particularly in the south, however, in early years, victims were more commonly white (specifically Mexican), and lynchings were more frequent in western territories and along the southern border. It was only after Reconstruction's end where the lynching of black people became more prevalent, and was arguably the most violent tool of oppression used by white supremacists. Nationwide, the share of the population who was black fluctuated between 10 and 13 percent in the years shown here, however the share of lynching victims who were black was almost 73 percent. North-south divide Of the 4.7 thousand victims of lynching between 1882 and 1968, over 3.5 thousand of these were killed in former-Confederate states. Of the fourteen states where the highest number of lynching victims were killed, eleven were former-Confederate states, and all saw the deaths of at least one hundred people due to lynching. Mississippi was the state where most people were lynched in these years, with an estimated 581 victims, 93 percent of whom were black. Georgia saw the second most lynchings, with 531 in total, and the share of black victims was also 93 percent. Compared to the nationwide average of 73 percent, the share of black victims in former-Confederate states was 86 percent. Texas was the only former-Confederate state where this share (71 percent) was below the national average, due to the large number of Mexicans who were lynched there. Outside of the south Of the non-Confederate state with the highest number of lynching victims, most either bordered the former-Confederate states, or were to the west. Generally speaking, the share of white victims in these states was often higher than in the south, meaning that the majority took place in the earlier years represented here; something often attributed to the lack of an established judiciary system in rural regions, and the demand for a speedy resolution. However, there are many reports of black people being lynched in the former border states in the early-20th century, as they made their way northward during the Great Migration. Between 1882 and 1968, lynchings were rare in the Northeast, although Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Rhode Island were the only states** without any recorded lynchings in these years.

As of July 2024, the largest age group among the United States population were adults aged 30 to 34 years old. There were 11.9 million males and some 12.1 million females in this age cohort. The total population of the country was estimated to be 340.1 million Which U.S. state has the largest population? The United States is the third most populous country in the world. It is preceded by China and India, and followed by Indonesia in terms of national population. The gender distribution in the U.S. has remained consistent for many years, with the number of females narrowly outnumbering males. In terms of where the residents are located, California was the state with the largest population. The U.S. population by race and ethnicity The United States poses an ethnically diverse population. In 2023, the number of Black or African American individuals was estimated to be 45.76 million, which represented an increase of over four million since the 2010 census. The number of Asian residents has increased at a similar rate during the same time period and the Hispanic population in the U.S. has also continued to grow.

In the past four centuries, the population of the Thirteen Colonies and United States of America has grown from a recorded 350 people around the Jamestown colony in Virginia in 1610, to an estimated 346 million in 2025. While the fertility rate has now dropped well below replacement level, and the population is on track to go into a natural decline in the 2040s, projected high net immigration rates mean the population will continue growing well into the next century, crossing the 400 million mark in the 2070s. Indigenous population Early population figures for the Thirteen Colonies and United States come with certain caveats. Official records excluded the indigenous population, and they generally remained excluded until the late 1800s. In 1500, in the first decade of European colonization of the Americas, the native population living within the modern U.S. borders was believed to be around 1.9 million people. The spread of Old World diseases, such as smallpox, measles, and influenza, to biologically defenseless populations in the New World then wreaked havoc across the continent, often wiping out large portions of the population in areas that had not yet made contact with Europeans. By the time of Jamestown's founding in 1607, it is believed the native population within current U.S. borders had dropped by almost 60 percent. As the U.S. expanded, indigenous populations were largely still excluded from population figures as they were driven westward, however taxpaying Natives were included in the census from 1870 to 1890, before all were included thereafter. It should be noted that estimates for indigenous populations in the Americas vary significantly by source and time period. Migration and expansion fuels population growth The arrival of European settlers and African slaves was the key driver of population growth in North America in the 17th century. Settlers from Britain were the dominant group in the Thirteen Colonies, before settlers from elsewhere in Europe, particularly Germany and Ireland, made a large impact in the mid-19th century. By the end of the 19th century, improvements in transport technology and increasing economic opportunities saw migration to the United States increase further, particularly from southern and Eastern Europe, and in the first decade of the 1900s the number of migrants to the U.S. exceeded one million people in some years. It is also estimated that almost 400,000 African slaves were transported directly across the Atlantic to mainland North America between 1500 and 1866 (although the importation of slaves was abolished in 1808). Blacks made up a much larger share of the population before slavery's abolition. Twentieth and twenty-first century The U.S. population has grown steadily since 1900, reaching one hundred million in the 1910s, two hundred million in the 1960s, and three hundred million in 2007. Since WWII, the U.S. has established itself as the world's foremost superpower, with the world's largest economy, and most powerful military. This growth in prosperity has been accompanied by increases in living standards, particularly through medical advances, infrastructure improvements, clean water accessibility. These have all contributed to higher infant and child survival rates, as well as an increase in life expectancy (doubling from roughly 40 to 80 years in the past 150 years), which have also played a large part in population growth. As fertility rates decline and increases in life expectancy slows, migration remains the largest factor in population growth. Since the 1960s, Latin America has now become the most common origin for migrants in the U.S., while immigration rates from Asia have also increased significantly. It remains to be seen how immigration restrictions of the current administration affect long-term population projections for the United States.

In 2023 the poverty rate in the United States was highest among people between 18 and 24, with a rate of 16 percent for male Americans and a rate of 21 percent for female Americans. The lowest poverty rate for both men and women was for those aged between 45 and 54. What is the poverty line? The poverty line is a metric used by the U.S. Census Bureau to define poverty in the United States. It is a specific income level that is considered to be the bare minimum a person or family needs to meet their basic needs. If a family’s annual pre-tax income is below this income level, then they are considered impoverished. The poverty guideline for a family of four in 2021 was 26,500 U.S. dollars. Living below the poverty line According to the most recent data, almost one-fifth of African Americans in the United States live below the poverty line; the most out of any ethnic group. Additionally, over 7.42 million families in the U.S. live in poverty – a figure that has held mostly steady since 1990, outside the 2008 financial crisis which threw 9.52 million families into poverty by 2012. The poverty gender gap Wage inequality has been an ongoing discussion in U.S. discourse for many years now. The poverty gap for women is most pronounced during their child-bearing years, shrinks, and then grows again in old age. While progress has been made on the gender pay gap over the last 30 years, there are still significant disparities, even in occupations that predominantly employ men. Additionally, women are often having to spend more time attending to child and household duties than men.

Consumers in Central African Republic paid the highest price for gasoline in Africa as of April 2025. One liter of the fuel cost on average 1.9 U.S. dollars in the country. In Senegal, the retail price for gasoline octane-95 reached on average 1.71 U.S. dollars per liter, the second-highest on the continent. On the other hand, consumers living in traditional crude oil producers in Africa, such as Nigeria, Algeria, Angola, Libya, and Egypt spent less money on gasoline. For instance, one liter cost 0.03 U.S. dollar in Libya, among the cheapest in the world.