America's population isn't growing as fast as in some years, but it's still expected to jump by 50 percent by 2050, according to a new Census Bureau report.
Increasing life expectancy is likely to help boost the population to 394 million by 2050, some 58 percent above the 1990 national head count, the bureau reported.Already the country's population has grown nearly 18 million between the 1990 census and 1997, the report released Thursday says.
However, the rate of increase is slower now than it was in the early 1990s, falling from 1.02 percent in 1990 to 0.88 percent in 1996.
That's because fewer people are being born and more are dying as the population ages. In particular, the massive baby boom generation, born in the years following World War II, is moving into less fertile years.
On Jan. 1, 1997, there were 27.09 million women in the prime childbearing ages of 15 to 29. That's 1.64 million fewer than in 1990.
There were 4.15 million births in 1990 compared with 3.85 million in 1996. At the same time, the number of annual deaths rose from 2.16 million to 2.35 million.
Nonetheless, the total is continuing to increase, the projections call for the population to be older, on average, and to include more mi-nor-ities.
The elderly are expected to double their share of the population in more than one-third of the states, said the report, "1997 Population Profile of the United States."
The fastest rates of growth for minorities are expected for Hispanics and Asian and Pacific Islander populations.
California is expected to continue rapid growth, adding 17.7 million people between 1995 and 2025, the agency said. Texas is expected to grow by 8.46 million in that period, and Florida will add 6.54 million.
That would jump Florida past New York as the third-largest state with a population of 20.70 million. New York's population is expected to grow 1.69 million to 19.88 million by 2025.