This graph shows the population of the U.S. by race and ethnic group from 2000 to 2023. In 2023, there were around 21.39 million people of Asian origin living in the United States. A ranking of the most spoken languages across the world can be accessed here. U.S. populationCurrently, the white population makes up the vast majority of the United States’ population, accounting for some 252.07 million people in 2023. This ethnicity group contributes to the highest share of the population in every region, but is especially noticeable in the Midwestern region. The Black or African American resident population totaled 45.76 million people in the same year. The overall population in the United States is expected to increase annually from 2022, with the 320.92 million people in 2015 expected to rise to 341.69 million people by 2027. Thus, population densities have also increased, totaling 36.3 inhabitants per square kilometer as of 2021. Despite being one of the most populous countries in the world, following China and India, the United States is not even among the top 150 most densely populated countries due to its large land mass. Monaco is the most densely populated country in the world and has a population density of 24,621.5 inhabitants per square kilometer as of 2021. As population numbers in the U.S. continues to grow, the Hispanic population has also seen a similar trend from 35.7 million inhabitants in the country in 2000 to some 62.65 million inhabitants in 2021. This growing population group is a significant source of population growth in the country due to both high immigration and birth rates. The United States is one of the most racially diverse countries in the world.

United States - Population Level - Black or African American was 35784.00000 Thous. of Persons in June of 2025, according to the United States Federal Reserve. Historically, United States - Population Level - Black or African American reached a record high of 35784.00000 in June of 2025 and a record low of 14332.00000 in January of 1972. Trading Economics provides the current actual value, an historical data chart and related indicators for United States - Population Level - Black or African American - last updated from the United States Federal Reserve on August of 2025.

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.

Graph and download economic data for Unemployment Rate - Black or African American (LNS14000006) from Jan 1972 to Jun 2025 about African-American, 16 years +, household survey, unemployment, rate, and USA.

The issue of race and slavery was arguably the largest cause of the American Civil War, with the southern states seceding from the Union as the practice of slavery became increasingly threatened. From the graph we can see that roughly 16.5 percent of the entire US population at this time was black, and the vast majority of these were slaves. In 1860 there were almost 27 million white people, four and a half million black people, and less than one hundred thousand non-black or white people (mostly of Native/Latin American or East-Asian origin).

Graph and download economic data for Population Level - Black or African American (LNU00000006) from Jan 1972 to Jul 2025 about African-American, civilian, population, and USA.

This statistic shows the population of the United States in the final census year before the American Civil War, shown by race and gender. From the data we can see that there were almost 27 million white people, 4.5 million black people, and eighty thousand classed as 'other'. The proportions of men to women were different for each category, with roughly 700 thousand more white men than women, over 100 thousand more black women than men, and almost three times as many men than women in the 'other' category. The reason for the higher male numbers in the white and other categories is because men migrated to the US at a higher rate than women, while there is no concrete explanation for the statistic regarding black people.

Graph and download economic data for Consumer Unit Characteristics: Percent White, Asian, and All Other Races, Not Including African American by Number of Earners: Consumer Units of Two or More People, One Earner (CXUWHTNDOTHLB0705M) from 1984 to 2023 about consumer unit, asian, white, percent, consumer, persons, and USA.

In 2023, ** percent of surveyed Americans said that Black people are treated less fairly than White people in dealing with the police in the United States, while ** percent said that both Black and White people are treated about equally when dealing with the police. In comparison, ** percent of Americans also said that both Black and White are treated about equally when voting in elections.

In 2023, **** percent of Black people living in the United States were living below the poverty line, compared to *** percent of white people. That year, the total poverty rate in the U.S. across all races and ethnicities was **** percent. Poverty in the United States Single people in the United States making less than ****** U.S. dollars a year and families of four making less than ****** U.S. dollars a year are considered to be below the poverty line. Women and children are more likely to suffer from poverty, due to women staying home more often than men to take care of children, and women suffering from the gender wage gap. Not only are women and children more likely to be affected, racial minorities are as well due to the discrimination they face. Poverty data Despite being one of the wealthiest nations in the world, the United States had the third highest poverty rate out of all OECD countries in 2019. However, the United States' poverty rate has been fluctuating since 1990, but has been decreasing since 2014. The average median household income in the U.S. has remained somewhat consistent since 1990, but has recently increased since 2014 until a slight decrease in 2020, potentially due to the pandemic. The state that had the highest number of people living below the poverty line in 2020 was California.

Graph and download economic data for Employment-Population Ratio - Black or African American (LNS12300006) from Jan 1972 to Jul 2025 about employment-population ratio, African-American, 16 years +, household survey, employment, population, and USA.

There were almost 700 thousand slaves in the US in 1790, which equated to approximately 18 percent of the total population, or roughly one in every six people. By 1860, the final census taken before the American Civil War, there were four million slaves in the South, compared with less than 0.5 million free African Americans in all of the US. Of the 4.4 million African Americans in the US before the war, almost four million of these people were held as slaves; meaning that for all African Americans living in the US in 1860, there was an 89 percent* chance that they lived in slavery. A brief history Trans-Atlantic slavery began in the early sixteenth century, when the Portuguese and Spanish forcefully brought captured African slaves to the New World, in order to work for them. The British Empire introduced slavery to North America on a large scale, and the economy of the British colonies there depended on slave labor, particularly regarding cotton, sugar and tobacco output. In the seventeenth and eighteenth century the number of slaves being brought to the Americas increased exponentially, and at the time of American independence it was legal in all thirteen colonies. Although slavery became increasingly prohibited in the north, the number of slaves remained high during this time as they were simply relocated or sold from the north to the south. It is also important to remember that the children of slaves were also viewed as property, and (apart from some very rare cases) were born into a life of slavery. Abolition and the American Civil War In the years that followed independence, the Northern States began gradually prohibiting slavery, and it was officially abolished there by 1805, and the importation of slave labor was prohibited nationwide from 1808 (although both still existed in practice after this). Business owners in the Southern States however depended on slave labor in order to meet the demand of their rapidly expanding industries, and the issue of slavery continued to polarize American society in the decades to come. This culminated in the election of President Abraham Lincoln in 1860, who promised to prohibit slavery in the newly acquired territories to the west, leading to the American Civil War from 1861 to 1865. Although the Confederacy (south) were victorious in much of the early stages of the war, the strength in numbers of the northern states (including many free, black men), eventually resulted in a victory for the Union (north), and the nationwide abolishment of slavery with the Thirteenth Amendment in 1865. Legacy In total, an estimated twelve to thirteen million Africans were transported to the Americas as slaves, and this does not include the high number who did not survive the journey (which was as high as 23 percent in some years). In the 150 years since the abolishment of slavery in the US, the African-American community have continuously campaigned for equal rights and opportunities that were not afforded to them along with freedom. The most prominent themes have been the Civil Rights Movement, voter suppression, mass incarceration and the relationship between the police and the African-American community has taken the spotlight in recent years.

Graph and download economic data for Consumer Unit Characteristics: Percent Men Reference Persons by Race: White and All Other Races, Not Including Black or African American (CXU980210LB0903M) from 2003 to 2023 about consumer unit, males, white, percent, personal, and USA.

How racially diverse are residents in Massachusetts? This topic shows the demographic breakdown of residents by race/ethnicity and the increases in the Non-white population since 2010.

About this dataset

Context

The dataset tabulates the population of Brooklyn borough by race. It includes the population of Brooklyn borough across racial categories (excluding ethnicity) as identified by the Census Bureau. The dataset can be utilized to understand the population distribution of Brooklyn borough across relevant racial categories.

Key observations

The percent distribution of Brooklyn borough population by race (across all racial categories recognized by the U.S. Census Bureau): 39.26% are white, 28.99% are Black or African American, 0.59% are American Indian and Alaska Native, 12.04% are Asian, 0.05% are Native Hawaiian and other Pacific Islander, 10.23% are some other race and 8.84% are multiracial.

Content

When available, the data consists of estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey (ACS) 2019-2023 5-Year Estimates.

Racial categories include:

• White
• Black or African American
• American Indian and Alaska Native
• Asian
• Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander
• Some other race
• Two or more races (multiracial)

Variables / Data Columns

• Race: This column displays the racial categories (excluding ethnicity) for the Brooklyn borough
• Population: The population of the racial category (excluding ethnicity) in the Brooklyn borough is shown in this column.
• % of Total Population: This column displays the percentage distribution of each race as a proportion of Brooklyn borough total population. Please note that the sum of all percentages may not equal one due to rounding of values.

Good to know

Margin of Error

Data in the dataset are based on the estimates and are subject to sampling variability and thus a margin of error. Neilsberg Research recommends using caution when presening these estimates in your research.

Custom data

If you do need custom data for any of your research project, report or presentation, you can contact our research staff at research@neilsberg.com for a feasibility of a custom tabulation on a fee-for-service basis.

Inspiration

Neilsberg Research Team curates, analyze and publishes demographics and economic data from a variety of public and proprietary sources, each of which often includes multiple surveys and programs. The large majority of Neilsberg Research aggregated datasets and insights is made available for free download at https://www.neilsberg.com/research/.

Recommended for further research

This dataset is a part of the main dataset for Brooklyn borough Population by Race & Ethnicity. You can refer the same here

Graph and download economic data for Homeownership Rates by Race and Ethnicity: Black Alone in the United States (BOAAAHORUSQ156N) from Q1 1994 to Q2 2025 about homeownership, African-American, rate, and USA.

In 2023, half of Generation Z in the United States were white. In comparison, 48 percent of Gen Alpha were white in that year, making it the first generation that does not have a majority white population in the United States.

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.

Link to this report's codebookUnfulfilled Promise of Racial EqualityUS states unequally distribute resources, services, and opportunities by raceThe US is failing to deliver on its promise of racial equality. While the US founding documents assert that ‘all men are created equal,’ this value is not demonstrated in outcomes across areas as diverse and varied as education, justice, health, gender, and pollution. On average, white communities receive resources and services at a rate approximately three times higher, than the least-served racial community (data on Asian, Black, Indigenous, Hawaiian and Pacific Islander, Hispanic, Multiracial and ‘Other’ racial communities, were used as available). Evidence shows that unequal treatment impacts each of these communities, however, it is most often Black and Indigenous communities that are left the furthest behind. When states are scored on how well they deliver the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to the racial group least served, no state is even halfway to achieving the SDGs by 2030 (see Figure 1). To learn more about the Sustainable Development Goals, see the section “SDGs & Accountability.”One example of this inequality is in life expectancy. In Figure 2, the scatter plot on the left demonstrates a pattern in which Black and Indigenous communities, represented by orange and green dots closest to the bottom of the graph, are consistently the communities with least access to years of life. In the graph on the right, each box represents a racial population in a specific state, the boxes are organized from left to right, lowest to highest, according to the life expectancy for that group and state. The graph shows how large the gap is in life expectancy across racial communities and states, with green and orange boxes, representing Indigenous and Black communities respectively, clustered to the left of the graph.Patterns like this one, demonstrating both deep and wide racial inequalities, occur across the 51 indicators this analysis includes, covering 12 of 17 SDGs. In a similar example (Figure 3), a pattern emerges where white students are least likely to attend a school where 75 percent or more of its students receive free or reduced cost lunch when compared to all other racial groups. In the most unequal state, North Dakota, Indigenous students attend high poverty schools at a rate 42 times higher than white students. As Figure 3 shows, although the percentage of students from the least served racial group attending high poverty schools ranges from 2 percent in Vermont to 73 percent in Mississippi, the group least served, represented by the dots closest to the top of the graph, are most often Hispanic and Indigenous communities.Lack of Racial DataMore, and better, racially and ethnically disaggregated data are needed to assess delivery of racial equalityA significant barrier to evaluating progress is the unavailability of racial data across all areas of measurement. For too many important topic areas, such as food insecurity, maternal mortality and lead in drinking water, there is no racial data available at the state level. Even in the areas where there is some racial data, it is often not available for all groups (see Figure 4). Particularly missing, were measures of environmental justice; in Goals focusing on Water, Clean Energy, and Life on Land (Goals 6, 7, and 15), racial data was not found for any indicators, despite the fact that there is research indicating that clean water, for example, is unequally distributed across racial groups. The reasons for these gaps vary. For some indicators, data is not tracked through a nationally organized database, for other indicators, the data is old and out of date, and in many cases, surveys are not large enough to disaggregate by race. As was made clear with the disparate impacts of COVID-19 (for example, see CDC 2020), understanding to whom resources are being distributed has real life implications and is an important part of holding democratic institutions accountable to promises of equality.People are often left behind due to a combination of intersecting identities and factors; they remain hidden in averages. Evaluating the Leave No One Behind Agenda through the lens of gender, ability, class and other identities are undoubtedly important and urgent. Disaggregating data along two axes such as race and location—is revealing. But an even more refined analysis using multilevel disaggregation, such as looking at women and race in urban settings, would likely reveal even starker inequalities. Those are not included here and are important areas for future work. Other areas for further exploration include the use of longitudinal data to understand how these inequalities are changing over time.Though the full extent of this unequal treatment is unknown, this analysis sheds some light on the clouded story told by state averages. Whole group averages leave out important information, particularly about inequality. Racially disaggregated data is essential for holding governments accountable to the promise of racial equity. Without it, it is too easy to hide who is being excluded and left behind.SDGs and AccountabilitySDGs and AccountabilityThe SDGs can be an accountability tool to address racial inequality. This would not be the first time UN frameworks have been used to call attention to racial inequality in the US. In 1951, the Civil Rights Congress (CRC) led by William L. Patterson and Paul Robeson put a petition to the UN, named: “We Charge Genocide,” which charged that the United States government was in violation of the Charter of the United Nations and the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (Figure 5). While this attempt did not succeed in charging the US government with genocide, it is a central example of how international instruments can be used to apply localized pressure to advance civil rights.All 193 member countries of the UN, including the United States, signed on to the Sustainable Development Goals in 2015, to be achieved by 2030. The Goals cover 17 wide-ranging topics, with 169 specific targets for action (Figure 6). The first agenda of the SDGs, the Leave No One Behind Agenda (LNOB), requires that those left furthest behind by governments must have the SDGs delivered to them first. The results of this project demonstrate that in a US-context, those left furthest behind would undoubtedly include Asian, Black, Indigenous, Hawaiian and Pacific Islander, Hispanic, Multiracial and ‘Other’ racial communities. The SDGs can offer a template for US states attempting to deliver on their promise of racial equality. The broad topic areas covered by the SDGs, in combination with the Leave No One Behind agenda, can be a tool to hold states accountable for addressing racial inequalities when and through developing solutions for clean water, quality education, ending hunger, delivering justice and more. This highlights an important implication of the Leave No One Behind Agenda, it is not meant to pit communities against each other, but rather to remind us how much everyone has to gain by building and advocating for sustainable communities that serve us all.Explore ResultsExplore the data from the In the Red: the US failure to deliver on a promise of racial equality in our interactive dashboards.These maps display how US states are delivering sustainability across different racial and ethnic groups. As part of the Leave No One Behind Agenda, which maintains that those who have been least served by development progress must be those first addressed through the SDGs, progress toward the goals in each state is displayed based on the racial group with the least access to resources, programs, and services in that state. In other words, the “Overall scores’’ map shows the score for the racial group least served in each state. Click on a state to toggle through the state’s performance by different SDGs, and click on an indicator to view how a state performs on a given indicator. At the indicator level, horizontal bar charts show the racial disparity in the selected indicator and state, when data is available.AboutIn the Red: the US Failure to Deliver on a Promise of Racial EqualityIn the Red: the US Failure to Deliver on a Promise of Racial Equality project highlights measurable gaps in how states deliver sustainability to different racial groups. The full report can be read here. It extends an earlier report, Never More Urgent, looking at policies and practices that have led to the inequalities described in this project. It was prepared by a group of independent experts at SDSN and Howard University.UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN)The UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN) mobilizes scientific and technical expertise from academia, civil society, and the private sector to support practical problem solving for sustainable development at local, national, and global scales. The SDSN has been operating since 2012 under the auspices of the UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. The SDSN is building national and regional networks of knowledge institutions, solution-focused thematic networks, and the SDG Academy, an online university for sustainable development.SDSN USASDSN USA is a network of 150+ research institutions across the United States and unincorporated territories. The network builds pathways toward achievement of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in the United States by mobilizing research, outreach, collective action, and global cooperation. SDSN USA is one of more than 40 national and regional SDSN networks globally. It is hosted by the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN) in New York City, and is chaired by Professors Jeffrey Sachs (Columbia University), Helen Bond (Howard University), Dan Esty (Yale University), and Gordon McCord (UC San Diego).

The graph illustrates the number of hate crime incidents against white people in the United States from 1991 to 2023. The x-axis represents the years, spanning from '91 to '23, while the y-axis indicates the annual number of incidents. Over this 33-year period, the number of incidents ranges from a low of 528 in 2011 to a high of 1,480 in 1993. Notable figures include 841 incidents in 1991, a decline to 539 in 2009, and a recent increase to 868 in 2023. The data shows a general downward trend in hate crime incidents from the early 1990s through the mid-2010s, followed by a significant rise in the latter years. This information is presented in a line graph format, effectively highlighting the long-term decrease and recent resurgence in hate crime incidents against white individuals in the United States.