What Will the US Population Be in 2050?

Population projections are educated guesses, and the Census Bureau is the first to say so. Every projection comes with a range of scenarios built around different assumptions about birth rates, death rates, and immigration levels, and the gap between the high and low scenarios in 2050 runs to tens of millions of people. But the central projections from the most credible sources are consistent enough to give a reasonable answer to the question: the US will most likely have somewhere between 370 million and 400 million people in 2050, up from about 340 million today.

What the projections actually say

According to the University of Virginia's Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service, whose 2024 projections are benchmarked on 2020 Census data and are widely cited by federal agencies and state legislatures, the US population is expected to grow from 331 million in 2020 to 349 million in 2030 and 371 million in 2050. Their previous round of projections was evaluated against the actual 2020 Census count and found to be highly accurate, which gives the methodology credibility.

The Census Bureau's own projections, detailed in its Population Projections report, estimate the US reaching 400 million in 2051 and 417 million by 2060. That higher figure reflects more optimistic assumptions about immigration levels. An earlier Census Bureau working paper put the 2050 range at 423 million under a low-immigration scenario to 458 million under a high-immigration scenario, with a zero-immigration scenario resulting in only a modest increase to 323 million.

The wide range in those scenarios makes one thing clear: immigration is the dominant variable. Without it, the US would barely grow at all.

Why immigration is the whole ballgame

The US birth rate has been declining for decades and is now below replacement level, meaning births alone would not sustain the population. According to USAFacts's analysis of Census Bureau projections, without any new immigration the Bureau estimates the nation's population would begin declining in 2024, resulting in approximately 107 million fewer people in 2100 than in 2022. Immigration has already become the primary driver of US population growth, and that dependence will only deepen as the Baby Boom generation ages through its 80s and 90s over the next 25 years.

According to the Peter G. Peterson Foundation's analysis of 2050 projections, immigrants and their children account for 26% of the US population today and are projected to reach 34% by 2050. The same analysis notes that 42 million foreign-born workers will be needed by 2050 to support the aging population, substantially more than the 29 to 30 million immigrants projected under current Census assumptions.

The political uncertainty around immigration policy is therefore the biggest source of uncertainty in any 2050 population forecast. A stricter enforcement environment that reduces net immigration by half could leave the US population 20 to 30 million people smaller in 2050 than the central projection suggests.

The aging of America

Regardless of how the immigration debate resolves, one demographic trend is essentially locked in: the US population is getting significantly older. According to the Cooper Center, by 2030 more than 20% of the population will be over 65 years old, roughly 71 million older Americans. The national median age is expected to rise from 38.78 years in 2020 to over 40 years by 2030.

According to USAFacts, the Census Bureau projects that by 2038 the death rate will exceed the birth rate in the US for the first time, meaning deaths will outnumber births every year from that point forward. By 2100, the Bureau estimates there will be 1.2 million more deaths than births annually. Population growth in the second half of this century, if it occurs at all, will come entirely from immigration.

The implications for healthcare, Social Security, Medicare, and the labor market are significant. A larger proportion of retirees drawing on entitlement programs, supported by a proportionally smaller working-age population, is the central fiscal challenge that these projections put into quantitative form.

The racial and ethnic composition in 2050

By 2050, the US will be a majority-minority country, meaning no single racial or ethnic group will constitute more than half the population. According to the Census Bureau's projection report, by 2044, more than half of all Americans are projected to belong to a minority group. According to USAFacts, the non-Hispanic white population will be less than half of the US population within the next decade.

The Hispanic population is projected to grow most in absolute terms, reaching roughly 29% of the total US population by 2050, up from about 20% today. The Asian American population is projected to reach about 9%, up from roughly 6% today. The Black population share is expected to remain relatively stable at around 13 to 14%. According to UVA Today's reporting on the Cooper Center projections, Americans continue moving from the Northeast and Midwest into the South and West, with those regions expected to grow between 6% and 8% over the coming decades while the Northeast is expected to see a population decrease of about 1% and the Midwest by about 2%.

Where the growth will and won't be

The geographic distribution of projected growth follows the patterns already visible in the data. Texas and Florida are expected to be among the largest beneficiaries of continued Sun Belt migration. The Mountain West will grow faster than average. The Upper Midwest and rural Northeast will continue losing population in relative terms and in some cases in absolute terms.

At the state level, Maine is projected to have the highest median age through 2050 according to the Cooper Center, while Utah will have the lowest, reflecting the continued divergence between aging, low-fertility states and younger, higher-fertility ones. According to the Cooper Center, Maine, Florida, New Hampshire, and Vermont are each expected to have nearly a quarter of their population over age 65 by 2030.

How accurate are these projections?

Population projections are wrong at the margins and sometimes significantly wrong when policy or events shift the underlying assumptions. The Census Bureau's 1990s projections underestimated Hispanic growth substantially. No projection model anticipated COVID-19's mortality impact or the 2024 immigration surge. The central scenarios for 2050 will almost certainly be off by tens of millions in one direction or another.

What they reliably capture are directional trends: the US will be older, more diverse, more dependent on immigration for growth, and more geographically concentrated in the South and West than it is today. Those trends are well-established enough that even large forecast errors won't reverse them.

The historical data going back to 1990 that makes those trends visible for every US city, county, and state is available on CensusEasy. You can see how any place has already changed and use the Compare tool to look at two places side by side.

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