White Americans

People

White Americans are Americans who identify as and are perceived to be white people. This group constitutes the majority of the people in the United States. According to the 2020 census, 61.6%, or 204,277,273 people, were white alone. This represented a national white demographic decline from a 72.4% share of the U.S.'s population (white alone) in 2010. As of July 1, 2021, United States Census Bureau estimates that 75.8% of the US population were white alone, while Non-Hispanic whites were 59.3% of the population. White Hispanic and Latino Americans totaled about 12,579,626, or 3.8% of the population. European Americans are the largest panethnic group of white Americans and have constituted the majority population of the United States since the nation's founding. The U.S. Census Bureau uses a particular definition of "white" that differs from some colloquial uses of the term. The Bureau defines "White" people to be those "having origins in any of the original peoples of Europe, the Middle East or North Africa." Within official census definitions, people of all racial categories may be further divided into those who identify as "not Hispanic or Latino" and those who do identify as "Hispanic or Latino". The term "non-Hispanic white," rather than just "white," may be the census group corresponding most closely to those persons who identify as and are perceived to be white in common usage; similarly not all Hispanic/Latino people identify as "white," "black," or any other listed racial category. In 2015, the Census Bureau announced their intention to make Hispanic/Latino a racial category similar to "white" or "black," with respondents able to choose one, two, or more racial categories; this change was cancelled during the Trump administration. Other persons who are classified as "white" by the U.S. census but may or may not identify as or be perceived as white include Arab Americans and Jewish Americans. In the United States, the term White people generally denotes a person of European ancestry, but has been legally extended to people of West Asian and North African (Middle Eastern, West Asian, and North African) ancestry. The largest ancestries of non-Hispanic White Americans include German (13%), Irish (12%), English (9%), Italian (6%), French (4%), Polish (3%), Scottish (3%), Scotch-Irish (2%), and Dutch, Norwegian, Swedish, and Russian, each (1%) respectively. It is difficult to track ancestry from Spain in Whites alone since people of Spanish descent are Hispanic and though the census does track Hispanics' national origin, it does not classify it by race. In 2021, 995,583 people of any race claimed ancestry from Spain, 0.3% of the total population. The British Americans' demography is considered a serious under-count as the stock tend to self-report and identify as simply "Americans" (7%), due to the length of time they have inhabited the United States, particularly if their family arrived prior to the American Revolution. The vast majority of white Americans also have ancestry from multiple countries.