Tuesday, August 21, 2012

100 Years Of Immigrants In America, In Two Graphs

Immigrants make up roughly the same share of the U.S. population today as they did a century ago.

Donut charts: Foreign Born Population

But changes in the global economy, and in U.S. immigration law, have dramatically shifted where U.S. immigrants are coming from.

A century ago, U.S. immigrants were overwhelmingly European. Today, Latin America and Asia are the big drivers of U.S. immigration, and Europe accounts for just a small fraction of the whole.

slope graph: Breakdown of Foreign-Born Population

Correction: A previous version of the first graphic displayed an incorrect number for 1960.