Wisconsin Diversity Increases Five-fold in Latest Census

Tom Schumacher, Board member

Wisconsin, like every other state in the US, became more diverse between 2010 and 2020. In our state, diversity rose from 7.2% to 37% by the latest census measure. Throughout the nation, the non-Hispanic white population’s share of the population decreased while the number of Hispanic and Asian people grew. Hawaii is the most diverse state, and the least diverse county in the nation is along the Mexican border in Texas where 98% of the population is Hispanic.

The diversity measure used by the Census Bureau is based on the probability that two randomly chosen people from a given geographic area belong to different racial and ethnic groups, which ignores concentrations of ethnic populations within states. Individual counties in Wisconsin generally increased in diversity by 5% to 10%, with diversity in our home Brown County up by 9.4%.

Source: US Census Bureau as reported by USAFacts