This blog is intended to go along with Population: An Introduction to Concepts and Issues, by John R. Weeks, published by Cengage Learning. The latest edition is the 13th (it will be out in January 2020), but this blog is meant to complement any edition of the book by showing the way in which demographic issues are regularly in the news.

You can download an iPhone app for the 13th edition from the App Store (search for Weeks Population).

If you are a user of my textbook and would like to suggest a blog post idea, please email me at: john.weeks@sdsu.edu

Monday, March 5, 2012

Demographics of Super Tuesday in the US

Super Tuesday refers, of course, to the large number of Presidential primary elections that will be held on Tuesday, March 6th. The Republican Party currently seems to be composed disproportionately of non-Hispanic whites who really hate the demographic changes taking place in the US, including the increase in the foreign-born population and the regular use of contraceptives by women. Ultimately these changes will have a big impact on the demographics of voters, but even people who don't vote may influence attitudes of those who do. The Center for American Progress in Washington, DC, has been tracking the demographics of several states as their primaries arrive, and the most recent in the installment gives us the Top 10 Things You Should Know About Georgia's Demographics and Immigration Politics. For example:

1. Georgia is at a demographic tipping point. It is 1 of 13 states where people of color make up more than 40 percent of the population. The state has 44.1 percent nonwhite residents, and the nonwhite share of the state has increased by 6.7 percent in the past decade. From 2000 to 2009 Georgia’s Hispanic population accounted for 23.2 percent of the state’s population growth.
2. People of color make up a substantial portion of Georgia’s population.African Americans make up 31.5 percent of the population, while 8.8 percent of the population is Hispanic or Latino, and 3.8 percent is Asian American.
Those links in the quotes, by the way, take you to tables with the data, so you can see things for yourself. You don't have to take their word for it. The data allow you to see that whereas 8.8 of the population in Georgia is Latino, only 1.8 percent of registered voters were Latino, as of 2010. On the other hand, the increasing presence of Latino's has created a backlash.
6. Georgia copied Arizona’s deeply unpopular anti-immigrant bill by passing its own law, H.B. 87, in 2011. Among other things, H.B. 87 makes it a crime to harbor or transport undocumented immigrants and empowers law enforcement to ask for “papers please” from anyone they suspect to be in the country without status. While polling on H.B. 87 is unavailable, 74 percent of Latino voters nationwide oppose the bill that inspired it, Arizona’s S.B. 1070.
7. The state is currently feeling the effects of this anti-immigrant measure.Early estimates argue that the state could lose between $300 million and $1 billion in the 2011 growing season alone.
This is, of course, yet another example of the policy of "We need you, but we don't want you." 

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