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Kendra Yoshinaga, NPR

Babies of color are now the majority, census says

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New Census Bureau estimates show that babies of color now outnumber non-Hispanic white babies who are 12 months old or younger.
New Census Bureau estimates show that babies of color now outnumber non-Hispanic white babies who are 12 months old or younger.
Jamie Grill/Blend Images

Today's generation of schoolchildren looks much different than one just a few decades ago. Nonwhites are expected to become the majority of the nation's children by 2020, as our colleague Bill Chappell reported last year. This is now the reality among the very youngest Americans: babies. Babies of color now outnumber non-Hispanic white babies (1 year or younger), according to new estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau. The newest estimate shows that on July 1, 2015, the population of racial or ethnic minority babies was 50.2 percent.

But the scales may have actually tipped in 2013 — the Census Bureau often revises past population estimates as new data become available. That means the first of these babies are now preschool-aged.

We've already been seeing this shift in U.S. schools: the 2014-15 school year marked the first time that minority student enrollment in public schools surpassed that of white students. NPR could not reach any babies for comment. Copyright 2019 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.