Multiracial boom in 2020 census was mostly an illusion, researchers say
When the 2020 Census the results were released, they showed a boom in the number of people classified as multiracial in the United States since 2010. Two Princeton sociologists now say that leap was largely an illusion.
The 276% increase was largely due to a change in the situation how people were classified by the US Census Bureau instead of strong shifts in racial or ethnic identity or major growth, according to a paper published last month by Paul Starr and Christina Pao. The Census Bureau, for the first time, provided space on the census form for people to record the ancestry of their families, which determined how the statistical agency categorized them.
People classified as two or more races increased from 2.9% to 10.2% of the U.S. population between 2010 and 2020, and the increase was most notable among Hispanic people. The share of the white population fell from 72.4% to 61.6%, leading to hand-wringing among some conservative commentators over what they called a loss of white power.
The Princeton researchers argued that anyone who marked themselves as black or white on the 2020 census form, but then wrote that they were of Hispanic descent, was reclassified as multiracial by an automated algorithm, even if they identified themselves marked as one breed. The same multiracial reclassification appeared to apply to people who identified themselves only as white but then wrote that their ancestry was from an African country, the researchers said.
“So the 2020 Census caused a sudden jump in the number of multiracial people and a precipitous drop in the white population, contributing to an unfounded panic among white conservatives about demographic changes,” Starr said in an email. “The procedure was deceptive and the public was misled about the extent of racial change.”
When the numbers were released in mid-2021, Census Bureau officials said the new method was an improvement that better reflects the complexity of how people identify their race and ethnicity in the 21st century. At the same time, they recognized that some of the dramatic growth likely came from their changes.
For the first time, blank spaces were left on the 2020 census form to allow respondents to write their “ancestry,” such as “German” or “Jamaican,” when answering the race question. The detailed responses guided the Census Bureau in classifying respondents and members of their households into race and ethnicity categories.
“These improvements show that the U.S. population is much more multiracial and diverse than what we have measured in the past,” Census Bureau officials said at the time.
The official figures on multiracial people are important because that is what they are used for redrawing political districtsenforcing civil rights, employment data, health statistics, and distributing federal funding. The daughter of a Jamaican father and an Indian mother, Vice President Kamala Harris ran for the White House as the 2024 Democratic presidential candidate place multiracial identity in the spotlight.
The Princeton researchers said the Census Bureau has incorrectly confused ancestry with identity and national origin with race, and they believe the bureau should abandon the use of “origin” to categorize people.
The issue flew under the radar due to other distractions surrounding the 2020 census, such as the Trump administration’s failed attempt to add a citizenship question, a controversial new data privacy method, and the Covid-19 pandemiccausing the country’s head count to fall off the schedule. Black, Hispanic and American Indian residents have made reservations were underexposed in the 2020 census.
Researchers have been asking the Census Bureau since 2021 to reprocess the 2020 data using 2010 methods so that an “apples to apples” comparison of demographic changes can be made, but the bureau has not yet done so, historian said Margo Anderson, who served on a National Academies panel that reviewed the quality of the census.
“It’s 2025 and people have been asking since 2021, ‘What the hell did you do?’” Anderson said. “There is a lot of frustration because we don’t know.”
The Census Bureau has historically struggled to classify multiracial people, says Susan Graham, an advocate for multiracial representation in official statistics. Respondents were not allowed to check more than one race until the 2000 census
“Was the 2020 Census Subject to a Fictional Multiracial Boom? Possibly,” Graham said. “As always, the answers will only get more confusing as the federal government goes back and tries to get it right one more time.”
Racial and ethnic categories used by the federal government are further changing to combine questions about race and ethnicity instead of asking them separately. A Middle Eastern and North African category will also be added, which will reduce the number of respondents who identify as white.
Not all demographers think the Census Bureau’s methodological change was so profound.
“I don’t think it’s that big of a problem for most people who use the data,” said William Frey, a demographer at The Brookings Institution. “I think the Census Bureau is trying hard to get this right.”
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