There were more 27-year-olds in the United States than people of any other age in 2018. But for white Americans, the most common age was 58, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of Census Bureau data.
In the histogram above, which shows the total number of Americans of each age last year, non-Hispanic whites tend to skew toward the older end of the spectrum (more to the right), while racial and ethnic minority groups – who include everyone except single-race non-Hispanic whites – skew younger (more to the left).
The most common age was 11 for Hispanics, 27 for blacks and 29 for Asians as of last July, the latest estimates available. Americans of two or more races were by far the youngest racial or ethnic group in the Census Bureau data, with a most common age of just 3 years old. Among all racial and ethnic minorities, the most common age was 27…
Non-Hispanic whites constituted a majority (60%) of the U.S. population in 2018, and they were also the oldest of any racial or ethnic group as measured by median age – a different statistic than most common age (mode). Whites had a median age of 44, meaning that if you lined up all whites in the U.S. from youngest to oldest, the person in the middle would be 44 years old. This compares with a median age of just 31 for minorities and 38 for the U.S. population overall.
The paragraphs above provide multiple pieces of information that explain the distribution displayed above:
-The different groups have different skews, suggesting these are not even distributions.
-The mode is much higher for whites.
-The median agrees with the conclusion from the mode – whites are on average older – but the gap between whites and other groups drops.
All three pieces of information could inform the headline but Pew chose to go with the mode. Is this with the intent of suggesting large age differences among the groups?
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