Years ago, I sat in on a briefing by internationally acclaimed demographer James Johnson of the Kenan Flagler Business School at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.
Dr. Johnson had been asked to address the largest class of freshman legislators in anyone’s living memory—budding lawmakers who might or might not have a grasp of North Carolina history and culture. It was clear that background information was definitely in order before those folks got to Raleigh and started enacting laws.
Johnson’s talk was entitled the “Graying and Browning of North Carolina,” and it was delivered to an audience with an average age well above 50 and some quite a bit beyond that milestone. The youngest was a 27-year-old fellow who had somehow managed to get himself elected just two years beyond eligibility and who stood out like someone’s lost grandson.
By “graying and browning,” Johnson was referring to an aging population and one that was becoming much more diverse than it was during the 20th century.
As Johnson flipped through his charts about the earliest settlers—Native Americans, of course, followed by English, then Scottish immigrants, and eventually the rainbow we see today, one newly minted legislator became increasingly agitated. He was a man of a certain age, with a decidedly conservative bent, and he did not like what the demographer was saying about the increasing age and diversity in our state.
Unable to contain himself a second longer, the man shouted, “I don’t believe that!”
Johnson stopped talking, acknowledged the legislator-elect’s comment, and then continued with his charts and lecture. Several minutes later, the man yelled again, and Johnson’s annoyance was clear. The briefing continued with the audience listening intently until the man stood, and for a third time shouted, “I just don’t believe that” and stomped out of the auditorium.
I will get back to that story, but in the meantime, the demographic changes Johnson referenced 2 decades ago are proving true.
Updates to 2020 US Census data reveal that those trends continue. Although Baby Boomers, Americans born after World War II between 1946 and 1964, are impacting the aging trend, younger people, primarily Asian and Hispanic, are slowing the aging trend a bit.
Nevertheless, the number of senior citizens—those 65 and older—has grown 15 percent since 2020, with 56 of our 100 counties now having more residents 65 and older than residents under 18. The fastest growing age group since 2020 is people between 75 and 79 at almost 29 percent, followed by those 80 to 84. Brunswick County, overflowing with retirees, has the highest median age at 57, while Onslow County, bursting with Marines, has the lowest at 28. Our state’s median age is now 39.
While North Carolina’s graying is accelerating, so is our browning. Data finds that Hispanic and Asian residents, defined as people with origins stretching from Korea to Pakistan, now make up 16 percent of our population or 1.7 million people, up from a mere 6 percent in 2020. Cumberland’s neighboring, highly agricultural counties, Duplin and Sampson, have the highest concentration of Hispanic residents at 24%.
At the same time, white non-Hispanic North Carolinians have dropped from 70-percent of our population to slightly less than 60 percent. African American residents have also decreased, but by a significantly smaller percentage, down from 21 percent to 20 percent.
All of this is a lot of numbers. It is also a lot of change.
But back to Dr. Johnson and his charts.
After the disbelieving soon-to-be legislator huffed out of the room, Johnson turned to the audience, mostly newly electeds with graying hair and expanding wrinkles, and said, “Look to your left.” We did. Then “look to your right.” We did.
“Are any of you people going home tonight to have a baby?”
Point made.
Those horses left the barn a generation ago.