The U.S. population hits 300 million and counting. Farai Chideya examines the statistics with Marlene Lee, senior policy analyst for the Population Reference Bureau.
FARAI CHIDEYA, host: From NPR News, this is NEWS & NOTES. I'm Farai Chideya.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: Did your commute feel a little slower yesterday? Or that line at the coffee shop a little longer? According the U.S. Census Bureau, America's population hit 300 million yesterday. That makes us only the third nation to cross this important threshold, behind China and India. And there are no signs of a slowdown.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: For more, we're joined in our Washington, D.C. headquarters by Marlene Lee, senior policy analyst with the Population Reference Bureau. Welcome.</s>Ms. MARLENE LEE (Senior Policy Analyst, Population Reference Bureau): Thank you.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: So as a country we're 30 percent larger than we were just 40 years ago. Now that's a lot of growth. Is it healthy for our country to be growing that fast?</s>Ms. MARLENE LEE (Senior Policy Analyst, Population Reference Bureau): Well, I think that depends on the resources we have and the prospective. Certainly for business markets, having more people is good. If you are waiting in line or on the highway, as you suggested in your introduction, it may not feel so great.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: What about other countries? How do we stack up to other nations, and are some of them actually shrinking?</s>Ms. MARLENE LEE (Senior Policy Analyst, Population Reference Bureau): When you look at other Western industrialized countries, like Italy and Germany and France, we actually have a higher rate of natural increase, so we're growing faster. Some of these countries have low total fertility rates and have - are close to our below replacement rate. So they're not really growing.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: Now how do you breakdown the growth in population here in the States? How much is births? How much is immigration?</s>Ms. MARLENE LEE (Senior Policy Analyst, Population Reference Bureau): Since 2000, between 2000 and 2005, natural increase - that's the number of birth minus the number of deaths - has accounted for about 60 percent of the growth in the U.S. population, whereas immigration has accounted for approximately 40 percent of the growth.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: Do you have any idea how that stacks up to other historical periods? I mean 40 percent is significant. Is that a lot more than we've seen at certain points in the past, or does it match certain other periods of immigration?</s>Ms. MARLENE LEE (Senior Policy Analyst, Population Reference Bureau): When we're talking about the contribution to growth - let's say, if we look at the 1990s - immigration was only about 30 percent of growth. In terms of the number of people immigrating to the U.S., we've really hit new heights here in the 2000s. But if you look at the share of the population that's attributable to immigrants, then we're at about the same level as we were in the early 1900s.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: And are there any population hotspots that are seeing very rapid growth now?</s>Ms. MARLENE LEE (Senior Policy Analyst, Population Reference Bureau): Well, the South and the West are growing much faster than the Midwest and the Northeast. Partly, that may be due to differences in the age of the population. The Midwest and the Northeast have older the populations. Also, the states where - that have more immigrants coming in such as California and Florida might be experiencing more immigration growth.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: And what about ethnically? Which ethnic groups or racial groups are experiencing the fastest growth or the slowest growth?</s>Ms. MARLENE LEE (Senior Policy Analyst, Population Reference Bureau): Well, the fastest growing ethnic groups in the U.S. are Hispanic and Asians. The slowest growing would be non-Hispanic whites.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: Now there's been a shift in the American household. It's no longer necessarily mom, dad, one and a half kids and a station wagon. What do these families and individuals look like today who were at the leading edge of the increase in American population?</s>Ms. MARLENE LEE (Senior Policy Analyst, Population Reference Bureau): We've seen big change in household composition. When you look at what households look like, there are much fewer large households, like five person households. There are many more single person households as the percentage of the population, and also non-family households. People have delayed marriage. And also, as people live older, once their spouse dies, they tend to be living alone.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: Finally, just a question about how we count America's population. You're with the Population Reference Bureau. And, of course, there's the Census Bureau. How can we accurately keep track of these milestones in America's growth?</s>Ms. MARLENE LEE (Senior Policy Analyst, Population Reference Bureau): We actually are just guessing as to when we will hit that 300 million mark because there is no registry of people in the U.S. So we won't know until much later when we actually hit that mark. It's an educated guess based on the rate of birth, how often deaths occur in the U.S., and how often we have immigrants entering the U.S.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: Well, Marlene Lee, thank you very much.</s>Ms. MARLENE LEE (Senior Policy Analyst, Population Reference Bureau): Thank you.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: Marlene Lee is senior policy analyst with the Population Reference Bureau.