Demographics of the United States

Vital statistics

U.S. demographic table

Sources: population, births and deaths, TFR, IMR, life expectancy

Notable events in American demographics:

• 1846–1851: Irish Immigration during the Great Famine
• 1861–1865: American Civil War
• 1874–1879: Long Depression
• 1917–1918: World War I and Spanish flu pandemic
• 1929–1939: Great Depression
• 1941–1945: World War II
• 1946–1964: mid-20th-century baby boom
• 1957–1958: Asian flu pandemic
• 2008: 2008 financial crisis and Great Recession
• 2020–2023: COVID-19 pandemic
• 2022–2024: Mexico–United States border crisis

Current vital statistics

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According to the U.S. Census Bureau, in 2021, the population of the United States grew at a slower rate than in any other year since the country's founding. The U.S. population grew only 0.1% from the previous year before. The U.S. population has grown by less than one million people for the first time since 1937, with the lowest numeric growth since at least 1900, when the Census Bureau began yearly population estimates. Apart from the previous few years, when population growth plummeted to historically low levels, the slowest pace of increase in the twentieth century occurred between 1918 and 1919, when the influenza epidemic and World War I were both in full swing. Slower population growth has been the norm in the United States for some years, owing to lower fertility and net international migration, as well as rising mortality from an aging population.

To put it another way, since the mid-2010s, births and net international migration have been dropping while deaths have risen. These trends have a cumulative effect of reduced population increase.

The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated this trend, resulting in a historically slow population increase in 2021.

The growth rate is 0.1% as estimated for 2021.

The birth rate is 11.0 births/1,000 population, as of 2020. This was the lowest birth rate since records began. There were 3,613,647 births in 2020, this was the lowest number of births since 1980.

• 11.0 births/1,000 population per year (final data for 2020).
• 11.4 births/1,000 population per year (final data for 2019).

In 2020, the CDC reported that there were 1,676,911 marriages in 2020, compared to 2019, there were 2,015,603 marriages. Marriage rates varied significantly by state, ranging from 3.2 marriages/1,000 population in California to 21.0 marriages/1,000 population in Nevada.*

• 5.1 marriages/1,000 population per year (provisional data for 2020).
• 6.1 marriages/1,000 population per year (provisional data for 2019).

*Rates are based on provisional counts of marriages by state of occurrence

In 2009, Time magazine reported that 40% of births in the United States were to unmarried women. The following is a breakdown by race for unwed births: 17% Asian, 29% White, 53% Hispanics (of any race), 66% Native Americans, and 72% Black American.

According to the CDC, in 2020, there were at least 1,461,121 births to unmarried women, or 40.5% of all births in the United States. The following is a breakdown by race for unwed births: 28.4% Non-Hispanic White, 70.4% Non-Hispanic Black, and 52.8% Hispanic (of any race).

The drop in the U.S. birth rate from 2007 to 2009 is believed to be associated with the Great Recession.

A study by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) found that more than half (51 percent) of live hospital births in 2008 and 2011 were male.

Per U.S. federal government data released in March 2011, births fell 4% from 2007 to 2009, the largest drop in the U.S. for any two-year period since the 1970s. Births have declined for three consecutive years, and are now 7% below the peak in 2007. This drop has continued through 2010, according to data released by the U.S. National Center for Health Statistics in June 2011. Numerous experts have suggested that this decline is largely a reflection of unfavorable economic conditions. This connection between birth rates and economic downturns partly stems from the fact that American birth rates have now fallen to levels that are comparable to the Great Depression of the 1930s. Teen birth rates in the U.S. are at their lowest level in U.S. history. In fact, teen birth rates in the U.S. have consistently decreased since 1991 through 2011, except for a brief increase between 2005 and 2007. The other aberration from this otherwise steady decline in teen birth rates is the 6% decrease in birth rates for 15- to 19-year-olds between 2008 and 2009. Despite these years of decrease, U.S. teen birth rates still remain higher than in other developed nations. Racial differences prevail with teen birth and pregnancy rates as well. American Indian/Alaska Native, Hispanic, and non-Hispanic Black teen pregnancy rates are more than double the non-Hispanic white teen birth rate.

Total fertility rate (TFR)

In 1800 the average U.S. woman had 7.04 children; by the first decade of the 1900s, this number had already decreased to 3.56. Since 1971, the birth rate has generally been below the replacement rate of 2.1. Since the Great Recession of 2007, the rate has consistently been below replacement. The drop in the TFR from 2.08 per woman in 2007 to 1.76 in 2017 was mostly due to the declining birth rate of ethnic minorities, teenagers and women in their 30s. During that period, the birthrate for women ages 35 to 44 has risen. The 12 month ending general fertility rate increased from 56.6 to 57.0 in 2022 Q1 compared to 2021 Q4.

Total fertility rates from 1800 to 2020

The total fertility rate is the number of children born per woman. Sources: Ansley J. Coale, Zelnik and National Center for Health Statistics.

The U.S. total fertility rate as of 2020 is 1.641

• 1.55 for non-Hispanic whites
• 1.71 for non-Hispanic Blacks
• 1.65 for Native Americans (including Hispanics)
• 1.53 for Asian Americans (including Hispanics)

Other:

• 1.88 for Hispanics (of all racial groups)

(Note that ≈95% of Hispanics are included as "white Hispanics" by CDC, which does not recognize the census's "Some other race" category and counts people in that category as white.)

Source: National Vital statistics report based on 2010 US census data

Total fertility rates by state, federal district or territory

Births and fertility by race

A total of 3,659,289 babies were born in 2021, a 1% increase from 2020. Additionally, researchers also looked at births by race and found that White and Hispanic women each saw the number of births increase by about 2% from 2020 to 2021. Meanwhile, Black and Asian women saw the number of births decline by 2.4% and 2.5%, respectively, over the same period, while American Indian/Alaskan Native women saw their numbers fall by 3.2%. It also marks the first rise in births since 2014. Prior to this report, the total number of births had been decreasing by an average of 2% per year. However, the total fertility rate (the number of births that the average women have over their lifetimes) was 1.6635 births per every woman. This is still below the replacement level, the level a population needs to replace itself, which is, at least, 2.1 births per woman.

Number of births and Total Fertility rate (TFR) by state

Number of births by country of birth of the mother (2024)

In 2024, 24.1% (873,113) of all the newborns in the US had a foreign-born mother.

Number of births by race and origin

U.S.-born residents

Note: Hispanics are counted both by their ethnicity and by their race, giving a higher overall number. Also note that growth arrows indicate an increase or decrease in the number of births, not in the fertility rate.

Key:

• NH = Non-Hispanic.
• TFR = Total fertility rate (number of children born per woman).
• Signs (+/−) indicate an increase or decrease in the number of births, not in the fertility rate, comparing to the previous year.

Percent of births to White Non-Hispanic women that were their 8th+ child, by U.S. state, in 2021

Mother's mean age at first birth

• 27.1 years (2020 est.)

Life expectancy

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), average American life expectancy at birth was 79.0 years in 2024, a record high. This was a gain of 0.6 years from 78.4 years in 2023. Average life expectancy was 76.4 years in 2021.

• Male: 76.5 (2024), 75.8 years (2023), 74.8 years (2022), 73.5 years (2021)
• Female: 81.4 years (2024), 81.1 years (2023), 80.2 years (2022), 79.3 years (2021)

Starting in 1998, life expectancy in the U.S. fell behind that of other wealthy industrialized countries, and Americans' "health disadvantage" gap has been increasing ever since. Average U.S. life expectancy in the United States has actually declined in four of the years following 2014 (the year when average U.S. life expectancy reached 78.9 years, its historical peak). These declines were mostly reversed in 2022 (+1.1 years), 2023 (+0.9 years), and 2024 (+0.6 years). The CDC attributed the improvement in 2024 to a significant fall in the number of fatal drug overdoses, adding that "heart disease continues to be the leading cause of death in the United States, followed by cancer and unintentional injuries." As of 2024, death rates among the youngest in the U.S. remain well higher than in peer nations. In 2023, there had already been lower death rates in each of the ten U.S. leading causes of death, with gains in life expectancy largely driven by "decreases in mortality due to COVID-19, heart disease, unintentional injuries, cancer and diabetes".

From 2019 to 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic had contributed to approximately 61% of the decrease in life expectancy in the United States. While increases in mortality from unintentional injuries, heart disease, homicide, and diabetes contributed to 11.7%, 5.8%, 2.9%, and 2.8% of the decrease in life expectancy from 2019 to 2020, respectively. Life expectancy has also varied by racial and ethnic group, with Non-Hispanic Asians having the highest life expectancy and Non-Hispanic American Indians having the lowest. In 2021, life expectancy at birth in the United States fell for the second year in a row, the first two-year drop since 1961–1963.

NOTE: Data regarding life expectancy at birth for 2021 are provisional.*

• NH = Non-Hispanic.
• LEB = Life expectancy at birth
• Growth arrows (/) indicate an increase or decrease in total life expectancy compared to years before.

Life expectancy at birth from 1901 to 2015

Life expectancy in the United States from 1901 to 2015. Source: Our World In Data and the United Nations.

1901–1950

1901–2015

Source: UN World Population Prospects

Life tables

Future projections

In 2023, the U.S. Census Bureau published an updated projection of the U.S. population for 2023–2100, taking into account the results of the 2020 census. The future size and composition of the U.S. population were estimated using the cohort-component method and historical trends in fertility, mortality, and international migration. The projection included a main variant and three alternative variants reflecting different international migration scenarios ("high immigration", "low immigration", and "zero immigration"), since immigration is the most uncertain component in population forecasting.

View source data.

Race, ethnicity, & other groups

The following table shows the race and ethnicity of the United States per the 1930, 1970, 2000, and 2020 censuses. Data only covers states and the federal district, thus only covering the first 48 states and Washington, D.C. in 1930 and including Alaska and Hawaii as well in 1970, 2000, and 2020. The figures thus do not include various other territories that have been under the United States during this time period. Over this time period, the U.S. has changed from being 89% White, 10% Black and 1% Hispanic in 1930 to 58% White, 12% Black, and 19% Hispanic ninety years later, reflecting a significant demographic shift.

Race

The United States Census Bureau collects racial data in accordance with guidelines provided by the U.S. Office of Management and Budget (OMB), and these data are based on self-identification. Many other countries count multiple races based on origin while America compiles multiple dozens of ethnicity groups into skin color grouping them together. The racial classifications and definitions used by the U.S. Census Bureau are:

• White: a person having origins in any of the original peoples of Europe, the Middle East, or North Africa. It includes people who indicate their race as "White" or report entries such as English, Azerbaijani, Iranian (Kurd and Lur), Irish, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Greek, Turkish, Lebanese, Moroccan (Arab and Berber), or Caucasian.
• Black or African American: a person having origins in any of the Black racial groups of Africa. It includes people who indicate their race as "Black, African Am." or report entries such as African American, Kenyan, Nigerian, or Haitian.
• American Indian or Alaska Native: a person having origins in any of the original peoples of North and South America (including Central America) and who maintains tribal affiliation or community attachment. This category includes people who indicate their race as "American Indian or Alaska Native" or report entries such as Navajo, Blackfeet, Inupiat, Yup'ik, Central American Indian groups, or South American Indian groups.
• Asian: a person having origins in any of the original peoples of East Asia, Southeast Asia, or South Asia, such as Cambodia, China, India, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Pakistan, the Philippine Islands, Thailand, and Vietnam.
• Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander: a person having origins in any of the original peoples of Hawaii, Guam, Samoa, or other Pacific Islands.
• Some other race: includes all other responses not included in the "White", "Black or African American", "American Indian or Alaska Native", "Asian", and "Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander" racial categories described above includes Asians from West Asia or Russia (non-European Russia) and White Africans.
• Two or more races: people may choose to provide two or more races either by checking two or more race response check boxes, providing multiple responses, or some combination of check boxes and other responses.

View source data.

Data about race and ethnicity are self-reported to the Census Bureau. Since the 2000 census, Congress has authorized people to identify themselves according to more than one racial classification by selecting more than one category. Only one ethnicity may be selected, however, because the Census Bureau recognizes only two ethnicities – "Hispanic or Latino" and "Not Hispanic or Latino" – which are mutually exclusive since you can be one or the other, but not both. The singular term Hispanic has been supplanted as a federally-recognized ethnicity by the combined "Hispanic or Latino," defined by the Census Bureau as a person of Cuban, Mexican, Puerto Rican, Cuban, South or Central American, or other Spanish culture or origin, regardless of race.

According to the Census Bureau website, the racial composition of the United States in 2021 was:

According to the 2022 American Community Survey, the racial composition of the United States in 2022 was:

Distribution of Total Population by Race, 1900 to 2020 (in %)

Hispanic are shown like part of the races. Source: U.S. Census Bureau.

^*Data are shown for the White, Black or African American, American Indian and Alaska Native, Asian and Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander, and Some other race alone populations.

Median age by each race alone and ethnicity, 2021

Source: United States Census Bureau.

Median age by race alone or in combination and ethnicity, 2021

Source: United States Census Bureau.

Hispanic or Latino origin

The U.S. Office of Management and Budget (OMB) defines "Hispanic or Latino" as a person of Cuban, Mexican, Puerto Rican, Dominican, South or Central American, or other Spanish culture or origin regardless of race. People who identify with the terms "Hispanic" or "Latino" are those who classify themselves in one of the specific Hispanic or Latino categories listed on the decennial census questionnaire and various Census Bureau survey questionnaires – "Mexican, Mexican Am., Chicano" or "Puerto Rican" or "Cuban" – as well as those who indicate that they are "another Hispanic, Latino, or Spanish origin". People who identify their origin as Hispanic or Latino may be of any race.

Population distribution by Hispanic origin 1970–2020 (in %)

Source: U.S. Census Bureau, decennial census of population, 1970 (5-percent sample), 1980 to 2020.

Median age of each race alone, 2021 (Hispanic)

Source: United States Census Bureau.

Note: Hispanic origin is considered an ethnicity, not a race. Hispanics may be of any race.

Indigenous peoples

As of 2020, there are 9,666,058 people identifying as American Indian and Alaska Native people in the United States, including those identifying with more than one race, representing around 3% of the U.S. population. This number includes not only groups indigenous to the United States, but any Indigenous people of the Americas, including Mesoamerican peoples such as the Maya, as well as Canadian and South American natives. In 2022, 634,503 Indigenous people in the United States identified with Central American Indigenous groups, 875,183 identified with the Indigenous people of Mexico, and 47,518 identified with Canadian First Nations. Of the 3.2 million Americans who identified as American Indian or Alaska Native alone in 2022, around 45% were of Hispanic or Latino ethnicity, with this number growing as increasing numbers of Indigenous people from Latin American countries immigrate to the U.S. and more Latinos self-identify with indigenous heritage. Of groups Indigenous to the contiguous United States, the largest self-reported tribes are Cherokee (1,449,888), Navajo (434,910), Choctaw (295,373), Blackfeet (288,255), and Sioux (220,739). Additionally, 205,954 identify with an Alaska Native tribe. There are 573 federally recognized tribal governments in the United States.

The U.S. Census Bureau classifies Native Hawaiians separately from American Indians and Alaska Natives, grouping them with Pacific Islanders instead. According to 2022 estimates, 714,847 Americans identified with Native Hawaiian ancestry.

Other groups

Veterans

There were 15.8 million veterans in 2023, with 6.2% of Americans having served in the Armed Forces. In 2023 the war with the highest number of veterans was the Korean War. Most veterans were male at 14 million and 1.7 million veterans were female. Currently the veteran population in the United States is getting smaller but more diverse. The racial makeup of veterans was in 2023 as follows: 74.1% white, 12.6% African-American, 10.3% other/mixed-race, 2.2% Asian/Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander and 0.8% being Native American. Veterans have a lower poverty and unemployment than non-veterans but have higher rates of disability than non-veterans.

Illegal immigrants

In 2010, The Washington Post estimated that there were 11 million illegal immigrants in the country. In 2017, the Pew Research Center reported an estimated 10.5 million illegal immigrants in the U.S. In 2025, Pew announced that "the number of unauthorized immigrants in the United States reached an all-time high of 14 million in 2023 after two consecutive years of growth".

Prisoners

In 2024, an estimated 1,867,404 adults were imprisoned in the United States according to the 2024 American Community Survey.

In 2016 it was reported that 92.7% of all prisoners were male, 6.9% female, 0.3% transgender, and 0.1% nonbinary. In 2022, there were 180,684 women incarcerated in U.S. prisons and jails. Most women involved in the country's correctional system were actually under probation, with 717,811 being so classified. Female parolees numbered 76,870, while 87,874 women were held in prisons and 92,900 women were held in jails in 2022.

Some 37% of all federal prisoners were Hispanic, 32% Black/African American, 21% white, and 2% Native American or Alaska Native. Asians, Native Hawaiians and other Pacific islanders made up 2% of the population, while "nearly 7% of federal prisoners identified as two or more races". In state prisons, 34% identified as Black/African American, 32% white, 21% Hispanic, 1% Native American or Alaskan Native, 1% as being either Asian/Native Hawaiian/Other Pacific Islander, and 11% "identified with two or more races".

LGBTQ Population

The United States Census Bureau does not measure sexual orientation but plans are in place to start measuring it starting in 2027 with the American Community Survey. In 2024, Gallup reported that 9.3% of adults were LGBTQ. The percentage of people who have reported being LGBTQ has risen during the 2010s and 2020s. Of LGBTQ adults in the United States, the most common identification was bisexual, with 56.3% of LGBTQ adults identifying as bisexual; bisexual people made up 5.2% of the adult U.S. population. The survey also reported that 13.9% of LGBTQ adults were transgender and made up 1.3% of the U.S. adult population.

In the 2020 United States census, there were more reported same-sex married couples than unmarried ones as there were 668,497 married same-sex couples and 500,073 unmarried same-sex couples.

In June 2023, UCLA's Williams Institute reported that there were approximately 823,000 same-sex couples in the United States. Also according to the institute, most same-sex couples were female at 53% and males were 47% of same-sex couples.

Projections

A report by the U.S. Census Bureau projects a decrease in the ratio of non-Hispanic Whites between 2023 and 2060, a decline from 58.9% of the population to 44.9%. Non-Hispanic Whites are projected to no longer make up a majority of the population by 2050, but will remain the largest single ethnic group. Non-Hispanic whites made up 85% of the population in 1960.

While non-Hispanic whites are projected to become a minority, the total White population (including Hispanics), will remain a majority from 2023 to 2060, falling from 75.5% to 72.3% of the population who are white alone according to the projections. However, these projections are not directly comparable to other Census Bureau data, as they are based on a modified race dataset, which does not include the "some other race" category used in census surveys. Individuals identifying as "some other race" alone or in combination made up 16.2% of the population in 2022, and they are reclassified into recognized race categories in the dataset used for the projections. As a result, there is a significant discrepancy between the share of the white alone population in 2023 according to the projections (75.5%), and the estimated share of white alone (60.9%), as reported by the American Community Survey in 2022.

The report foresees the Hispanic or Latino population rising from 19.1% today to 26.9% by 2060, the Black percentage barely rising from 13.6% to 14.8%, and Asian Americans upping their 6.3% share to 9.4%. The United States had a population of 333 million people in July 2023, and is projected to reach 355 million by 2040 and 364 million in 2060. It is further projected that all of the increase in population from 2023 to 2060 will be due to immigrants.

Of the nation's children in 2060, 64% are expected to be of a minority ethnicity, up from 51% today. Approximately 32% are projected to be Hispanic or Latino (up from 26% in 2023), and 36% are projected to be single-race, non-Hispanic Whites (down from 49% in 2023). Racial and ethnic minorities surpassed non-Hispanic whites as the largest group of U.S. children under 5 years old in 2015.

The fastest growing racial group in America is Asian Americans with a growth rate of 35%, however the multiracial mixed Asian group is growing even faster, with a growth rate of 55%. Multiracial Asians are therefore the fastest growing demographic group in America.

In 2020, it was reported that 51.0% of births were to non-Hispanic white mothers. In 2021, the percentage increased to 51.5%. However, by 2022 the rate of births to white mothers had declined by 3%, dropping to 50% of all total births. In the same period, the rate of births to Asian and Hispanic women increased by 2% and 6%, respectively. In the same time period, births to Asian American and Hispanic women increased by 2% and 6%, respectively.

Pew Research Center projections

The United Nations projects a population of just over 400 million in 2060.

The country's racial profile will be vastly different, and although whites will remain the single largest ethnic group in the U.S., they will no longer be a majority excluding White Hispanics by 2055 according to Pew Research Center. Growth in the Hispanic and Asian populations is predicted to almost triple over the next 40 years. By 2055, the breakdown is estimated to be 48% non-Hispanic white, 24% Hispanic, 16% Black, and 14% Asian.

As of 2015, 14% of the United States' population is foreign born, compared to just 5% in 1965. Nearly 39 million immigrants have come to the U.S. since 1965, with most coming from Asia and Latin America. The 2015 Census Report predicts that the percentage of the U.S. population that is foreign-born will continue to increase, reaching 19% by 2060. This increase in the foreign-born population will account for a large share of the overall population growth.

The average person in the U.S. of 2060 is likely to be older than the average person of 2018 today, and it is projected that almost one in four people will be 65 or older.

U.S. Census Census Bureau projections

Percent minority 1970–2042 (2008 projections)

Note: "Minority" refers to people who reported their ethnicity and race as something other than non-Hispanic White alone in the decennial census.

Total US population

Self-reported ancestry

This table displays all self-reported ancestries with over 10,000 members according to estimates from the 2026 American Community Survey.

Religion

Religious affiliations

The table below is based mainly on selected data as reported to the United States Census Bureau. It only includes the voluntary self-reported membership of religious bodies with 750,000 or more. The definition of a member is determined by each religious body. In 2004, the US census bureau reported that about 13% of the population did not identify themselves as a member of any religion.

According to data from Pew Research, Americans are significantly more religious on average than populations in other developed Western nations, with 55% of Americans reporting praying daily, compared to only 25% of Canadians, 18% of Australians, 6% of British people, and 22% of Europeans as a whole. The country has a smaller share of unaffiliated or atheist population than most other Western nations. However, this population has been growing significantly in recent decades. Surveys conducted in 2014 and 2019 by Pew indicated that the percentage of Americans unaffiliated with a religion increased from 16% in 2007 to 23% in 2014 and 26% of the population in 2019. A Pew Research Survey performed in 2012 found that the number of Americans without a religion was approaching the number of Evangelical Protestants, and estimated that if the current growth rate in irreligion continued, around 51% of Americans will not have a religion by 2050.

According to statistical data made by the Pew Research Center in 2023 about 62% of the US population is Christian, 29% is Unaffiliated, 2% is Jewish, 1% follows Buddhism, 1% follows Hinduism, 1% follows Islam and 3% follow traditional religions and others. Currently, the United States has the largest Christian population in the world (approximately 210 million) and the largest Protestant Christian population (approximately 130 million). The country also has the second largest Jewish community in the world (after Israel) and the largest Buddhist and Hindu communities in the West, as well as the largest number of followers of Islam in North America. The country has about 99 million non-affiliates (only China and Japan have more).

According to Pew Research Center study released in 2018, by 2040, Islam will surpass Judaism to become the second largest religion in the US due to higher immigration and birth rates.

Religions of U.S. adults

The United States government does not collect religious data in its census. The survey below, the American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS) 2008, was a random digit-dialed telephone survey of 54,461 American residential households in the contiguous United States. The 1990 sample size was 113,723; 2001 sample size was 50,281.

Adult respondents were asked the open-ended question, "What is your religion, if any?". Interviewers did not prompt or offer a suggested list of potential answers. The religion of the spouse or partner was also asked. If the initial answer was "Protestant" or "Christian" further questions were asked to probe which particular denomination. About one-third of the sample was asked more detailed demographic questions.

Religious Self-Identification of the U.S. Adult Population: 1990, 2001, 2008
Figures are not adjusted for refusals to reply; investigators suspect refusals are possibly more representative of "no religion" than any other group.

Migration

Immigration

Foreign-born population

As of 2017, an estimated 44,525,458 residents of the United States were foreign-born, 13.5% of the country's total population. This demographic includes recent as well as longstanding immigrants; statistically Europeans have resided in the US longer than those from other regions with approximately 66% having arrived prior to 2000.

Immigration (2023)

In 2017, out of the U.S. foreign-born population, some 45% (20.7 million) were naturalized citizens, 27% (12.3 million) were lawful permanent residents (including many eligible to become citizens), 6% (2.2 million) were temporary lawful residents, and 23% (10.5 million) were unauthorized immigrants. The Pew Research Center estimated that "the number of unauthorized immigrants in the United States reached an all-time high of 14 million in 2023 after two consecutive years of growth".

Among current living immigrants to the U.S., the top five countries of birth are Mexico (25% of immigrants), China (6%), India (6%), the Philippines (5%) and El Salvador (3%). Some 13% of current living immigrants come from Europe and Canada, and 10% from the Caribbean. Among new arrivals, Asian immigrants have been more numerous than Hispanic immigrants since 2010; in 2017, 37.4% of immigrant arrivals were Asian, and 26.6% were Hispanic. Until 2017 and 2018, the United States led the world in refugee resettlement for decades, admitting more refugees than the rest of the world combined. From fiscal year 1980 until 2017, 55% of refugees came from Asia, 27% from Europe, 13% from Africa, and 4% from Latin America, fleeing war and persecution.

• Net migration rate (2024): 3 migrants/1,000 population. Country comparison to the world: 38th
• Net migration rate* (2020–2021): 0.73 migrants/1,000 population.

*(mid-year estimates)

As of 2017, 13.6% (44.4 million) of the population was foreign-born – an increase from 4.7% in 1970 but less than the 1890 record of 14.8%. Some 45% of the foreign-born population were naturalized US citizens. Around 23% (10.3 million) of the foreign-born community is undocumented, accounting for 3.2% of the total population. According to the 2010 census, Latin America and the Caribbean is the largest region-of-birth group, accounting for 53% of the foreign-born population. As of 2018, this region is still the largest source of immigrants to the United States. In 2018, there were almost 90 million immigrants and U.S. born children of immigrants (second-generation Americans) in the United States, accounting for 28% of the overall U.S. population. In 2018, 1,096,611 immigrants were granted either permanent or temporary legal residence in the United States

Emigration and Expatriation

As of April 2015, the U.S. State Department estimated that 8.7 million American citizens live overseas. Americans living abroad are not counted in the U.S. census unless they are federal government employees or dependents of a federal employee. A 2010 paper estimated the number of civilian Americans living abroad to be around 4 million. So-called "accidental Americans" are citizens of a country other than the United States who may also be considered U.S. citizens or be eligible for U.S. citizenship under specific laws but are not aware of having such status (or became aware of it only recently).

As of 2022, 1.6 million Americans live in Mexico, according to the State Department.

Socioeconomics

Income

In 2020, the median household income in the United States was around $67,521, 2.9 percent less than the 2019 median of $69,560. Household and personal income depends on variables such as race, number of income earners, educational attainment and marital status.

Economic class

Social classes in the United States lack distinct boundaries and may overlap. Even their existence (when distinguished from economic strata) is controversial. The following table provides a summary of some prominent academic theories on the stratification of American society:

Unemployment rate (seasonally adjusted)

The U6 unemployment rate as of April 2017 was 8.6 percent. The U6 unemployment rate counts not only people without work seeking full-time employment (the more familiar U3 rate), but also counts "marginally attached workers and those working part-time for economic reasons". Some of these part-time workers counted as employed by U6 could be working as little as an hour a week. And the "marginally attached workers" include those who have become discouraged and stopped looking, but still want to work. The age considered for this calculation is 16 years and over.

Urban Americans have more job opportunities than those in more rural areas. From 2008 to 2018, 72% of the nation's employment growth occurred in cities with more than one million residents, which account for 56% of the overall population.

Generational cohorts

A definitive recent study of U.S. generational cohorts was done by Schuman and Scott (2012) in which a broad sample of adults of all ages was asked, "What world events are especially important to you?" They found that 33 events were mentioned with great frequency. When the ages of the respondents were correlated with the expressed importance rankings, seven (some indicated eight or nine) distinct cohorts became evident.

Today the following descriptors are frequently used for these cohorts:

U.S. demographic birth cohorts

Subdivided groups are present when peak boom years or inverted peak bust years are present, and may be represented by a normal or inverted bell-shaped curve (rather than a straight curve). The boom subdivided cohorts may be considered as "pre-peak" (including peak year) and "post-peak". The year 1957 was the baby boom peak with 4.3 million births and 122.7 fertility rate. Although post-peak births (such as trailing edge boomers) are in decline, and sometimes referred to as a "bust", there are still a relatively large number of births. The dearth-in-birth bust cohorts include those up to the valley birth year, and those including and beyond, leading up to the subsequent normal birth rate. The baby boom began around 1943 to 1946.

From the decline in U.S. birth rates starting in 1958 and the introduction of the birth control pill in 1960, the Baby Boomer normal distribution curve is negatively skewed. The trend in birth rates from 1958 to 1961 show a tendency to end late in the decade at approximately 1969, thus returning to levels prior to World War II, with 12 years of rising and 12 years of declining birth rates. Pre-war birth rates were defined as anywhere between 1939 and 1941 by demographers such as the Taeuber's, Philip M. Hauser and William Fielding Ogburn.

Mobility

In 2021, 27.1 million Americans said they were living in a different place than a year before, compared to 29.8 million in 2020. This reflects an 8.4% mover rate, the lowest recorded in more than 70 years.

Education

In 2022 the most common level of highest educational attainment among those 25 years old and up (who were civilian and not institutionalized) was completing high school.

Housing

According to the 2020 United States census, the country had a total of 140,498,736 housing units, of which 126,817,580 (90.3%) were occupied and 13,681,156 (9.7%) were classified as being vacant, irrespective of status ("for rent", "rented, not occupied", "for sale only", "sold, not occupied", "for seasonal, recreational, or occasional use", among others). Of the occupied units, 80,051,358 units (63.1%) were owner-occupied, while 46,766,222 units (36.9%) were occupied by tenants.

In the 2024 1-year American Community Survey the median number of rooms in a housing unit was 5.5 with the most common amount of rooms for a housing unit being 5 per unit. Homes have more excess bedrooms (bedrooms which are not occupied) than in the past compared to 1970 and 1980 but home sizes on average have decreased since the 2010s.

U.S. housing units

1-year ACS estimates

5-year ACS estimates

For reference, the 5-year ACS estimate is taken every year is collected for all areas regardless of population over a 5-year period compared to the 1-year estimates which are collected within a year and only cover areas with a population at or over 65,000+ people.

Housing and year of construction

A plurality of housing units were built in the 1970s according to 2024 1-year American Community Survey and the 5-year survey. Data is as of the 2024 1-year American Community Survey. Table source:

Homes with or without select services

Phone service

Data covers from 1-year American Community Survey estimates.

Plumbing

This table only looks at occupied housing units and this table shows results from the 1-year American Community Survey. No data is available for 2020.

Homes and heating

It was also reported in the 2024 1-year American Community survey that among occupied housing units the most common fuel for heating was "Utility gas". The same was true of the 5-year survey also from 2024.

Health