Everything is bigger in Texas, including the number of residents of diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds who joined the state’s population last year.
The Lone Star State led all others in new Hispanic, Asian and Black residents in 2023. Among U.S. metro areas, Houston added the most Hispanic residents, and Dallas the most Asian and Black residents, according to population estimates released by the U.S. Census Bureau on Thursday.
Texas also the had the biggest jump last year in the overall population, adding 473,000 people.
“We are adding more people, and that would include all different kinds of people, and more diversity,” said Xiuhong “Helen” You, associate director and senior demographer of the Texas Demographic Center. “Whether it’s people who are looking for job opportunities or whether it’s people who are beginning to establish families and are looking for affordable homes.”
Nationwide, Hispanic residents propelled U.S. growth last year, accounting for almost three-quarters of the nation’s population gain, according to the bureau’s population estimates from 2022 to 2023.
Hispanic people, who can be of any race, are now the nation’s second-largest demographic group, and births outpacing deaths made up most of the Hispanic growth last year.
“The Hispanic population is expanding at a substantially faster rate than the non-Hispanic population,” said Kristie Wilder, a Census Bureau demographer.
The Hispanic population grew by about 1.2 million people last year, out of a total U.S. gain of more than 1.6 million residents, raising the number of Hispanics in the country to 65.2 million people, or almost a fifth of the total U.S. population, according to the bureau’s estimates.
The largest racial or ethnic group in the U.S., non-Hispanic white people, representing 58% of the population, was the only one to experience a year-over-year drop — 461,000 people — because of deaths outpacing births. Its numbers would have declined further…
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