Census Bureau: Baltimore gains Hispanic residents, continues to lose Black population

Yahoo

3 days ago

Baltimore's slight population increase last year was driven by Hispanic residents, whose population increased by about 2,200, according to Census Bureau estimates released Thursday. The city is also estimated to have overall gained 700 Asian residents and about 500 people of two or more races.
Baltimore's Black population continued its yearslong decline, however.
While Baltimore gained 754 residents overall from July 2023 to July 2024, the number of Black residents fell by 0.8%, representing a 5% decline since the 2020 census. Prince George's, Talbot County and Worcester counties were the only other Maryland jurisdictions whose Black populations decreased.
Baltimore's white population was virtually unchanged from last year, declining by 63 people, though it's down 4.4% since the 2020 census. Baltimore's overall population of 568,271 residents is down almost 3% since 2020. The latest estimates say the city is 59% Black, 27% white, 9% Hispanic, 3% Asian and 2% people of two or more races.
The decrease in the Black population in Baltimore City is likely due to people leaving the city for suburban areas and natural population decline, or more deaths than births, said Michael Bader, the Director of the 21st Century Cities Initiative at Johns Hopkins University.
Baltimore County's number of Black residents increased by 1.4% between July 2023 and July 2024. The county overall had the Baltimore region's largest increase in the proportion of residents who are nonwhite or Hispanic during that period, rising 0.87 percentage points to 49.5%. Conversely, Baltimore City had the state's smallest increase in the share of its population that's nonwhite, inching up 0.05 percentage points to 73.5%.
Bader said that the increase in the Hispanic population in Baltimore City is likely due to immigration.
'People tend to move when they're younger, and when they're younger, they are also at ages where they have children,' Bader said. 'The combination of folks moving to economic centers in Baltimore and then having kids is probably what's leading to the growth of the Hispanic population in Baltimore.'
With a median age of 39.7, Maryland skews older than the U.S. as a whole, which had a median age of 39.1, a record high.
The country's median age has increased, University of Maryland Public Health Assistant Professor Hector Alcala said, due to increased improved life expectancies and people having fewer children.
Bader said that many young people are unable to move to or stay in Maryland due to high costs of living and the state's housing shortage, which also may have contributed to the state's high median age.
Baltimore City had the second-youngest median age of Maryland's 24 jurisdictions, at 36.5 years old. Most of the oldest counties by median age were on the Eastern Shore, with Worcester and Talbot County topping the list with a median age of more than 50 years.
Children, under 18 years old, still outnumber older adults in Maryland, 65 years or older, despite the opposite being true for 11 states in 2024.
Talbot County has the highest share of their population being older adults of any county, at 30.6%. Statewide, around 17.6% of the population was over 65.
Most counties with high median ages were in Maryland's Eastern Shore, which Johns Hopkins Professor Odis Johnson says is because these areas are typically more affordable for people on retirement salaries.
Trump administration policies are likely to affect the size and makeup of Maryland populations in the next few years, Bader and Alcala said.
The Hispanic population, Bader said, may decrease due to immigration laws and ICE crackdowns making even authorized immigrants choosing not to move to Maryland.
'For a long time, the only reason that the state has not lost a whole bunch of people has been because of migration from people born outside the United States to the state,' Bader said. 'That's going to be a problem … the economic consequences of the policies of the federal government are going to hit Maryland pretty hard.'
Alcala pointed to the cuts to the federal workforce, which he predicts will lead residents of counties surrounding Washington, D.C., and Baltimore to move to more affordable areas or leave altogether.
Have a news tip? Contact Katharine Wilson at [e-mail].