Minority numbers may triple in U.S.

The nation's Hispanic and Asian populations are expected to triple in the next 50 years — and minorities could make up half the population by 2050, according to a new projection by the U.S. Census Bureau.

The projection, released today, shows only national data, but some researchers say Utah's Hispanic population growth is likely to keep pace or even surpass the nation's.

Tony Yapias, director of the Utah Office of Hispanic Affairs, says two things bring Latino immigrants to Utah: jobs and the LDS Church.

The state's Hispanic population more than doubled during the 1990s, making up 9 percent of Utah's population by 2000. The state's Asian population comprised 1.7 percent of the population in 2000.

"It's cool now to be bilingual and bicultural. Thirty years ago, it wasn't," said Yapias, who was 14 years old when he arrived in the United States from Peru, speaking no English.

Yapias said many Hispanic immigrants take low-skill jobs in service and labor, such as manufacturing and construction. There's also a growing educated population as immigrants' children graduate from high school and go to college.

"Right now in the Hispanic community there is money, buying power," he said. "This should be a wake-up call for businesses."

"We're in one of the states with the most rapid growth of foreign-born population. Most is Hispanic," said Pam Perlich, senior research economist for the Bureau of Economic and Business Research at the University of Utah. "Almost one out of four new Utahns over the 1990s were Hispanic."

Perlich said a wild card in the equation is job demand in sectors such as construction and service. If that declines, so could the influx of Hispanic workers, she said.

However, she said whites will probably remain the state's majority because of the state's high fertility rate and its current relatively small minority population.

The national census projection is based on a number of factors, such as the 2000 Census, birth and death certificates and immigration, said Gregory Spencer, chief of the Census Bureau's population projection branch.

It projects the nation's population will grow by 49 percent to 419.9 million in 2050. However, it anticipates the growth rate after 2030 could be the slowest since the Great Depression as the nation begins to lose its aging baby boomer population.