Report: Children Make Up Smallest-Ever Share of U.S. Population

Chil­dren, who made up 40% of America’s total pop­u­la­tion in 1900 and 36% of it as recent­ly as 1960, account­ed for just 22% of the country’s total pop­u­la­tion in 2020, an all-time low, accord­ing to an analy­sis authored by experts on child demog­ra­phy and released today by the Annie E. Casey Foun­da­tion.

The report — The Chang­ing Child Pop­u­la­tion of the Unit­ed States: First Data From the 2020 Cen­sus — also shows the num­ber of chil­dren of col­or grew from 2010 in 46 states and D.C. These shifts also under­score the urgent need for bet­ter data, as the 2020 cen­sus under­count­ed young chil­dren at the worst rate since 1950.