Majority minority in the United States

No single minority is yet the majority in any state, with the closest to that end being Hispanics in New Mexico (49% of the total population as of the 2020 census).

[29] The demographics of these states changed markedly from the 1890s through the 1960s, as two waves of the Great Migration resulted in more than 6,500,000 African Americans to abandon the economically depressed, segregated Deep South in search of better employment opportunities and living conditions, first in Northern and Midwestern industrial cities, and later west to California.

At the same time, the Asian, Hispanic, and Mixed race populations have all increased in the District, and it is still classified as a majority-minority area.

Since 1965, changes in the origin of foreign immigration have resulted in increases in the number of majority-minority areas, most notably in California.

[37] Out of the top 20 cities by population in 2020, only Indianapolis (50.08%), Columbus (51.97%), Denver (54.33%), and Seattle (59.45%) retain non-Hispanic white majorities.

[45] Normally, a state is classified as majority-minority because of the ethnic or racial makeup of residents, but other criteria are occasionally used, such as religion, disability, or age.

For example, the majority of Utah residents are members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, a Christian denomination that is a religious minority throughout the rest of the United States.

Hawaii is classified as religious majority of Unaffiliated, including agnostics, atheists, humanists, the irreligious, and secularists (non-practicing).

In January 2016, CUNY sociologist Richard Alba wrote an article in The American Prospect arguing that the way in which majority-minority calculations are made by the Census are misleading.

Thus, when the Census projects that non-Hispanic whites will be less than 50% of the population by the 2040s, Alba believes these people of mixed-race ancestry are improperly excluded from that category.