Description

White Americans are Americans who identify as white people. In a more official sense, the United States Census Bureau, which collects demographic data on Americans, defines "white" as "[a] person having origins in any of the original peoples of Europe, the Middle East, or North Africa". Individuals within this group tend to have light skin tones and various hair colors, mainly brown or blonde and to a lesser extent black or red due to their primarily English and German origins, although Irish, Italian and White Hispanic origin are also prominent. This group constitutes the majority of the people in the United States, although their proportion of the overall population has been gradually declining. As of the latest American Community Survey in 2023, the US Census Bureau estimates that 60.5% of the US population, or 202,651,650 people, are White alone, while Non-Hispanic Whites make up 57.1% of the population. Overall, 72.3% of Americans identify as White alone or in combination. European Americans are by far the largest panethnic group of white Americans and have constituted the majority population of the United States since the nation's founding. Middle Eastern Americans constitute a much smaller demographic of white Americans, making up around 1.1% of the US population in 2020.