On Tuesday, Vice President Joe Biden said it will be a “good thing” when whites are an “absolute minority” in America in 2017.
The U.S. Census, though, has projected that America will be a majority-minority nation in 2044. The Census report, released in March, also projected that “by 2060, nearly one in five of the nation’s total population is projected to be foreign born.”
“By 2017, those of us of European stock will be an absolute minority in the United States of America,” Biden said at a State Department luncheon for Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff. According to pool reports, Biden added that that’s “not a bad thing, that’s a good thing” because it means the country is becoming more diverse.
The U.S. Census Bureau revealed last week that in 2014, minorities made up a majority of children under five years of age in the United States for the first time.
Biden is reportedly considering a run for the White House and his party’s chances of keeping the White House depend on whether minorities and young voters who made up Obama’s coalition turn out again with the same level of enthusiasm. Recent polling has found that non-white voters are less enthusiastic about the 2016 election than white voters who tend to lean more Republican.