Captured_by_Becca / Flickr

The numbers show that D.C. is above national rates when it comes to interracial marriage and dating. Another stand-out point: interracial coupling is more prevalent among same-sex partners than opposite-sex partners in D.C. Check out the numbers below:

Percentage of interracial couples living together:

*Source: U.S. Census Bureau

At first glance, it may appear that people are more likely to date and live with someone of another race than marry interracially. But we should also point out that interracial marriage is on the rise, around the country and in D.C., where 20 percent of people who got married between 2008 and 2010 married someone of another race. Compare that to the percentage of all married couples in D.C., 10.2 percent. So the unmarried, interracial couples living together in D.C. may just be newer pairs. More interracial cohabitating appears to be leading to more interracial marriage.

Aside from interracial marriage, the census data also showed that D.C. and Alexandria, Va. lead the nation’s large cities in the percentage of people living alone. In both cities, 44 percent of households consist of just one person. These individuals in D.C. are typically young and rich, and are the ones largely responsible for the District’s growing population.

Elvert Barnes / Flickr

A diverse group of people ride up and down escalators at DC USA in Columbia Heights. D.C. experienced dramatic demographic changes in 2011.

The year is nearly coming to a close, so we thought we’d take a look back to see just how much D.C. changed in 2011.  Here’s our list, and feel free to contribute more in the comments section:

It’s gotten more expensive to buy a home.

D.C.’s housing prices increased by 1.3 percent this year, according to the S&P/Case-Shiller index. Meanwhile, housing prices in other cities have remained steady or have dropped.

Rising home values can be a result of gentrification — as a neighborhood becomes more desirable, demand for homes increases, which drives value up.

Fewer African Americans and more whites and Hispanics live here.

This year, D.C. lost its status as “Chocolate City” after more than four decades of being a majority black city. Meanwhile, the white population increased by more than 30 percent and the Hispanic population by 20 percent. That revelation prompted folks to reflect upon what such changes mean for the city’s neighborhoods, culture and political scene.

People are moving in at a record-breaking pace.

For the first time in 70 years, D.C. leads the nation in population growth. The District’s population grew by 2.7 percent between April 2010 and June 2011, according to Census data.

The income gap grew between whites and blacks, and the rich and the poor.

Whites earn $3.06 for every $1 African Americans earn, making D.C.’s racial income gap one of the largest in the nation. This has happened while D.C.’s suburbs saw a decrease in the income gap between whites and blacks.

Among cities with 100,000 people or more, the District comes in third for highest income inequality, a measure of how evenly distributed wealth is among a population. Such income inequality is one of the major grievances fueling the Occupy movement, which began in 2011 and spread to cities throughout the world, including D.C.

There are more jobs, but unemployment increased.

Since 2009, job openings have risen throughout the country. In D.C., the private sector grew by 17,100 jobs this year. Despite this, D.C.’s unemployment rate is higher than it was in 2010. A number of factors cause high unemployment in parts of D.C., which we examined this year in our “Division of Labor” series.

Adam Bartlett / Flickr

Poverty rates have reached their highest levels since 1993, with 1 in 6 Americans living in poverty in 2010, according to new census data released today. But not all groups have been affected equally.

Here’s what we’ve gleaned from the latest U.S. Census Bureau data dump, which includes information on the racial groups most likely to live in poverty, be without insurance or see drops in household income:

Who had the lowest poverty rate? Whites.

White people had the lowest poverty rate in 2010, at 9.9 percent. The percentage of whites living in poverty didn’t change much between 2009 and 2010, but household income did drop slightly.

Which group is hit hardest by poverty? African Americans.

We know the black middle class was particularly hit hard by the recession, but it’s not just the middle class that’s feeling disproportionate effects. More than a quarter of African Americans live in poverty, and the rate is rising faster than that of any other group.

Which group saw the biggest increase in the uninsured? Asians.

The percentage of Asians without health insurance increased to 18.1 percent, while it remained relatively stable for whites, blacks and Hispanics. However, Hispanics are still the most likely to be without insurance; nearly 1 in 3 don’t have coverage.

Are naturalized citizens less likely to live in poverty? Yes.

The poverty rate for immigrants who have become U.S. citizens is 11.3 percent. But that rate is more than double for the foreign-born who haven’t become citizens.

Who has the largest household income? Asians.

Households headed by an Asian had the largest median income in 2010, at $64,308, which is more than double the amount for African Americans. The median household income for whites was $54,620 in 2010. Measuring median income gives a more accurate picture of the state of a particular community because it controls for the very poor and the very rich — so people like Oprah and Bill Gates can’t skew the picture.

Mandel Ngan / AFP/Getty Images

A protestor with a t-shirt bearing the name of the country "El Salvador" drapes a US flag over his shoulders during an immigration rally on the National Mall.

An increase in the number of Central Americans accounts for much of the rise of Hispanics in D.C., according to newly released Census data.

There were 7,557 more Central Americans in D.C. in 2010 than in 2000. Hispanics of all races constituted 9.1 percent of the District’s population in 2010, a jump from 7.9 percent in 2000. Meanwhile, the District’s non-Hispanic black population has been slowly declining over the past decade, with most estimates putting it at below 50 percent, the first time D.C. has been without a black majority in more than 51 years.

Salvadorans make up the largest-single Hispanic group in the District, and the D.C. region is home to the second-largest Salvadoran population in the United States. Salvadorans are the fifth-largest immigrant group in the U.S, many of whom fled El Salvador’s civil war in the 1980s and 1990s and the country’s current economic woes.

Fives Largest Hispanic Groups in D.C.

*2010 Census

The U.S. Census Bureau embarked upon a thorough outreach campaign within the Hispanic community in the lead-up to the 2010 count. They partnered with nonprofits, ran Spanish-language commercials and even got Census storylines written into Spanish telenovelas, according to Census public affairs specialist Melanie Deal. About 13 million bilingual forms were sent out in 2010; none were mailed out in 2000.

But it’s too early to tell whether increased outreach accounts for the reported jump in the Hispanic population, says Deal, since information is still being analyzed and released. The official 2010 numbers, however, don’t differ much from yearly estimates put out by the Census Bureau. In 2009, the Census estimated 53,025 Hispanics lived in D.C., which is about 1,700 people shy of the official 2010 count.

The blocks just north of the U Street corridor used to be 77 percent black and 5 percent white; now, they’re 15 percent black and 66 percent white. Columbia Heights blocks that once had a black majorities are now mostly Hispanic. Blocks between Georgia and Sherman avenues were majority black in 1990 and still are — although to a much lesser degree.

The maps below show which racial groups constitute the majority in a block area. Bolder colors represent higher percentages of that group:

1990

Screenshot / Washington Post

Population breakdown in Adams Morgan, Columbia Heights, Shaw and Petworth in 1990. (White = Pink; African Americans = Blue; Hispanics = Purple)

2010

Screenshot / Washington Post

Population breakdown in Adams Morgan, Columbia Heights, Shaw and Petworth in 2010. (White = Pink; African Americans = Blue; Hispanics = Purple)

Indians are the latest wave of Asians transforming the region, having leapfrogged over Koreans a decade ago. For the first time, they make up the biggest group of Asians in Virginia, largely because they have moved to the Washington suburbs.

Their increasing presence reflects the growth of information-technology jobs in the region. Most came for jobs, having attended school elsewhere in the United States or in India, said Qian Cai, head of demographics at the University of Virginia’s Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service.

With their high levels of education and income, Indians are pushing up those averages for the entire region.

“The ability to attract the Asian Indian community here helps to increase the knowledge base of our metro area,” said William H. Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution. “These are the cream of the crop, in terms of people who have high skills. Their kids are going to our schools and improving the schools in the process.”

While many Asians in the D.C.-area have high levels of education and income, and particularly those settling in wealthier counties such as Loudoun and Fairfax in Virginia, there are Asian Americans who don’t fit the mold.

D.C.-based advocacy group South Asian Americans Leading Together produced a 2009 report [PDF] in which D.C. South Asians — mostly Indians — reported that among their most pressing concerns were post-9/11 discrimination and access to health care, job trainings and legal services.

SAALT policy director Priya Murthy wrote in an email to DCentric that despite all of the successes experienced by South Asians in D.C., “it’s also important to remember that, as with any immigrant population, there are unique challenges that community members face,” she writes. “… We can’t forget that there is also a significant working-class population who works in the region as taxicab drivers, domestic workers, and restaurant workers. It is crucial to consider that certain metrics of success for the community do not mask ongoing challenges that many South Asians face.”

Although many of the about 200 South Asians surveyed in the SAALT study were high-income earners, 11 percent earned less than $29,000 annually, many of whom had advanced degrees:

… Of those that earned less than $29,000, 62% had completed a graduate or professional program. In discussions with South Asian taxi drivers, most of whom are naturalized citizens, many spoke proudly of their educational attainment in their home countries, and of their frustration during their job search in the United States, especially in fields commensurate with their levels of education. They explained that driving a taxi was supposed to be a means to an end—a temporary job until they found work more suitable for their skill set. But with the influx of immigrants just like them, the network of taxi drivers expanded, and the temporary aspect slowly evolved into permanency.

Paul J. Richards/AFP/Getty Images

Official U.S. Census form.

DCentric sister blog Multi-American directs our attention to the Pew Center’s Daily Number feature for today that shows the country’s population growth between 2000 and 2010 was almost exclusively driven by minorities:

Overall, racial and ethnic minorities accounted for 91.7% of the nation’s population growth over the past 10 years.

The non-Hispanic white population has accounted for only the remaining 8.3% of the nation’s growth. Hispanics were responsible for 56% of the nation’s population growth over the past decade. There are now 50.5 million Latinos living in the U.S. according to the 2010 Census, up from 35.3 million in 2000, making Latinos the nation’s largest minority group and 16.3% of the total population. There are 196.8 million whites in the U.S. (accounting for 63.7% of the total population), 37.7 million blacks (12.2%) and 14.5 million Asians (4.7%). Six million non-Hispanics, or 1.9% of the U.S. population, checked more than one race.

That certainly isn’t the case here in D.C., where population growth was driven by non-Hispanic whites. Between 2000 and 2010, the black population declined and the Hispanic population rose from just 7.9 percent of the city’s population 9 percent.  But we can look to the surrounding suburban counties to see a more representative picture of what’s happening across the country.

What stories on the census don’t discuss is how many of the 300,000 Washingtonians identify as African Americans because they are immigrants from Africa, or children of immigrants from Africa. That number is probably as high as ten percent of the overall total of African Americans here now. Their story is, for the most part, the immigrant story, the story of a search for opportunity and a better life. They aren’t weighed down by the city’s history and golden-age thinking.

Screenshot of Washingtonpost.com

The Washington Post ran a story on D.C.'s changing demographics.

We’re not sure exactly where those particular figures come from (perhaps they refer to the African population in the entire D.C.-metro area, which numbers as 150,000 strong). But if we look at the most recent Census estimates, the District had about 74,000 foreign born residents in 2009. Of those, about 18,000 are black immigrants from African and Caribbean countries — accounting for 24 percent of all immigrants here in the District. Those numbers obviously don’t include the U.S.-born children of these immigrants, but they do speak to a sizable population of folks in D.C. who may check “black or African-American” on a Census form but perhaps don’t identify first and foremost with the American black experience.

I think this is a widely misreported trend. When the New York Times recently did a piece on me, Ezra Klein, Brian Beutler, and Dave Weigel exactly zero people complained about the massive over-representation of people of Latin American ancestry that reflected. People saw it as a profile of four white dudes. Which is what it was. But my dad’s family is from Cuba, Ezra’s dad’s family is from Brazil, and Brian’s mom’s family is from Chile. That’s kind of a funny coincidence, but the combination of continued immigration and intermarriage means that over time a larger and larger share of American people will be partially descended from Latin American countries.

The New York Times profiles four (white) pundits.

That Times piece on Yglesias and his fellow, young pundits did receive plenty of criticism (and even its own parody!). But Yglesias is right: no one criticized the over-representation of Latin American-ancestry among the four subjects. The reporter behind the piece even commented on the “white maleness” of the story.

When it comes to Latinos and Hispanics, racial identity has proven to be a much more fluid thing than for other groups. For instance, let’s take a look at Latino immigrants: a 2010 American Sociological Association report found that there are many Latino immigrants who are accepted as white by larger society, but those with darker complexions still face plenty of discrimination. It even suggested a new racial category to describe Latinos could form.

A 2004 Pew Hispanic Center report [PDF] zeroes in on how Latinos and Hispanics self-identify, showing that many “have seized on whiteness as a measure of success, a measure of belonging.”

The report also showed that how Latinos racially-identify isn’t just about the color of their skin; rather, it has plenty to do with their socioeconomic status. A summary of the report reads:

‘It is not that some are more Hispanic or Latino than the others because they all really have taken on the mantle,’ said Sonya Tafoya, a research associate at the Pew Hispanic Center and author of the report. ‘Nor are Hispanics saying that race does not matter to them. Rather, the message seems to be that Latinos in the United States experience race differently. For them, it is not something that pertains exclusively to skin color, let alone history and heritage.’

Yglesias, although pointing out the Latin American roots of the Times profile subjects, does write it was indeed about “four white dudes.” But perhaps that’s just as much a reflection of how the world views young men like these as how they view themselves. Maybe even more.

Flickr: The White House

President Obama, filling out his 2010 Census form last March.

Much has been made of D.C.’s losing its Chocolate City status, but as one person rightly pointed out, the 2010 U.S. Census Bureau statistic of D.C.’s black population being 50.7 percent doesn’t include people who checked black and another race.

Nationwide there has been a significant increase — almost 50 percent among children — of people reporting multiple races in the 2010 Census. But how big of a jump was there in D.C., and how do multiracial residents fit into the District’s changing image of a majority-black city?

A look at the numbers leads us to believe this population isn’t making that much of an impact in a debate that’s largely white-black: in 2010, 17,316 people, or 2.9 percent of the District’s population, reported being of two or more races. That’s an increase from 2.4 percent in 2000. Not a phenomenal boost, no, but it is growing slightly.

In 2010, the largest number of multiracial residents were white and Asian (3,736), followed closely by people reporting to be white and black (3,476). But the number of people reporting to be black and  any other race was 7,436. Are those folks part of Chocolate City? If so, the statistical contribution would be a small one, said demographer Roderick J. Harrison, a senior fellow at the Joint Center and a Howard University associate professor. D.C. lost 39,000 black residents since 2000.

President Barack Obama most likely checked both the white and black boxes under race on his Census form. And yet many refer to President Obama as America’s first black president. Seldom do we hear “first biracial president.” The legacy behind that is a long one indeed, but there are also individuals who, while acknowledging their multiracial backgrounds, more closely identify with one over the other.

“The numbers suggest there are a lot of people who are mixed by biology or ancestry but whose experience perhaps is that they are identified as black or Asian or something else,” said Harrison.

How multiracial people self-identify could have a lot to do with the racial make-up of the communities in which they grow up, he added.

Filling out the Census form is all about self-identification; the forms ask people to check the boxes for races that they most closely identify with, so it’s really how the individual chooses to respond to that question. When Harrison worked as the chief of the U.S. Census Bureau’s Racial Statistics Branch, he said he observed instances in which people reported being of multiple races even though they appeared to have two parents of just one race. “It seems some people interpreted the question as, ‘tell me about your ancestry,’” he said.

Is that the case for the one individual in D.C. who marked six races on the 2010 Census form? If you checked white, black, American Indian, Asian, Pacific Islander and some other race, DCentric wants to hear from you!