Census: Omaha Metro Area Inching Closer to 1M Population

The United States is becoming a much more diverse nation, as many more Americans are identifying as “some other race” than in years prior.

The 2020 Census used two questions to collect data on race. One for Hispanic or Latino origin, and another for race. The White population remains the largest group in the U.S., but the White alone population has decreased by 8.6% since 2010. That’s as the Latino population grew by 23%.

The two-or-more category has changed significantly, growing from 9 million people to 33.8 million.

This might be because of the way the race question was asked, as well as changing attitudes to how people self-identify.

As a state, Nebraska grew by a little more than 7%, with most of that growth in urban counties. Only Nebraska’s three most populous counties saw population growth in the double-digits: Sarpy, Douglas and Lancaster. Only 24 of the state’s 93 counties grew at all, those counties tended to follow Interstate 80 or in eastern Nebraska.

For the Omaha metro area -- which includes counties in both Nebraska and Iowa -- a milestone may be reached.

“We will be expecting to hit the million mark in 2024," David Drozd, research coordinator at the University of Nebraska at Omaha's Center for Public Affairs Research, said.

"Which is quite a threshold: there are a lot of employers who will only look at metro areas that have at least a million population when they’re looking to put an office or a plant in a particular area as they expand."

Urban growth and rural declines were a theme nationwide.

The 2020 Census was plagued by problems caused by both politics and the pandemic. Former President Donald Trump stalled some policy changes that would have improved some racial and ethnic categories, and his attempt to add a citizenship question was feared to have caused a chilling effect among some minorities.

The pandemic delayed the usual door knocking process of the census, as well as created a series of delays that will complicate state legislatures redistricting plans.

We won’t know exactly how off the counts were until sometime next year, but historically the Census has struggled to count minorities.