ETHNIC HOUSEHOLDS
Cheryl Russell, a demographer and author of the Demo Memo blog, says households headed by blacks grew 2.8 percent in the past year, as did the number headed by Asians. Hispanic households increased 0.9 percent, she wrote, in an analysis of Census Bureau data.
Here’s the breakdown:
Total housholds: 124.6 million
Asian: 6.3 million
Black: 17.2 million
Hispanic: 16.2 million
Non-Hispanic White: 84.2 million
Asians and Hispanics are now the key population segments for economic growth, according to a University of Georgia study.
Those two groups account for $2 trillion of the nation’s $13.5 trillion in buying power this year, according to the report from the Selig Center for Economic Growth at UGA.
Total buying power is up 213 percent in the past quarter-century, and that growth is partly due to an increasingly diverse nation, wrote Jeff Humphreys, Selig Center’s director.
“The Asian and Hispanic markets will really drive the U.S. consumer market,” Humphreys said.
“Those two groups will account for a disproportionate amount of growth. The African-American market will still expand at a rate that’s compelling, but the Asian and Hispanic markets are where you see the really fast-paced growth.”
The Hispanic market in the United States this year 2015 will be $1.3 trillion — larger than the gross domestic product of Mexico — and will reach $1.7 trillion in 2020, Humphreys said.
The Asian market will be $1.1 trillion in 2020.
The “Multicultural Economy” report, which Humphreys has been preparing for more than two decades, predicts that African-American buying power will be $1.4 trillion in 2020.
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