Hispanics Lead Idaho’s 2006 Population Growth

By J. Gelband, 5-21-07

The numbers are in, and they are good. But they are just estimates.

The Census Bureau estimated that the population of Hispanics in Idaho, the state’s largest minority, rose 6.4 percent from mid-2005 to mid-2006. The growth rate for Idaho Hispanics was the strongest since the 2000 census and is a percent increase more than twice the state’s overall population growth rate of 2.6 percent.

According to the Idaho Commerce & Labor department, the statewide population is 1,466,465. As of July 1, 2006, 138,870 of the state residents are Hispanic – an increase of 8,300 people from a year earlier. That means that nearly one in every four new residents over the year was Hispanic, and it makes Idaho’s Hispanic population the 15th largest in the country.

“Hispanics are an important segment of Idaho’s economy, supplying critical manpower to keep the state’s expansion going and providing businesses with a significant market for goods and services,” Idaho Commerce & Labor Director Roger B. Madsen said.

American Indians were the second largest minority group with fewer than 21,000 residents, or 1.4 percent.

Other estimates indicate that working-age Idahoans continue to increase, which is good for maintaining labor and, consequently, economic expansion. Meanwhile, the percentage of Idaho’s overall number of people under age 18 is declining (27 percent of the population in 2006 compared to 28.5 percent in 2000) and the population of residents age 65 and over is relatively unchanged at 11.5 percent.

Commerce & Labor says that most of the state’s population growth has been among 18 to 65 year-olds, which is a huge age range. That demographic grew almost 3 percent from mid-2005 and makes up 61.5 percent of the 2006 population.

Now, if only all the people in that age group were influenced by the same TV commercial, that would make the lives of marketing execs so much easier.