In the last 20 years, the U.S. population has grown faster than ever before. From 1990 to 2010, the U.S. population grew by 60 million, a boom driven primarily by unprecedented immigration. This millennium boom handily supersedes the 54 million new human beings who arrived during the postwar prosperity of the baby boom.

Jeff Parker / Florida Today (click to view more cartoons by Parker)

You would not have a clue about these trends, though, if you had listened to Census Director Robert Groves when he released the 2010 Census results. At the National Press Club, Groves stood in front of a graph emphasizing the percentage growth rate of the last 10 years, which he characterized as “the second lowest of the past century.”

Without specifying the percentage growth rate, Grove’s statement would have been completely inaccurate. With it, we have the nation’s Demographer-in-Chief engaging in statistical malpractice. The 27.3 million people we added in the last 10 years was the third largest population gain ever.

Groves even went further, using the percentage-only graphic to emphasize “two notable decades” — the 1930s and 1950s — while brazenly ignoring the 32 million person surge of the 1990s. Combine these past two decades and you get America’s millennium boom, a 20-year population increase of more than 60 million.

Apparently, Groves is convinced that absolute numbers are absolutely inconsequential. By sticking to his percentage-growth-only graphics, Groves deployed soothing statistical sound-bites to portray a misleading picture of America’s population trends.

This official demographic spin was echoed without scrutiny through the media, with major news outlets running misguided headlines. AOL News proclaimed “2010 Census: US Growth Slowest Since Depression”. FOX News said “Census Shows Slowing US Growth”. The Christian Science Monitor asked “Why Did US Population Growth Slow?”

When we have just finished the largest two-decade population surge in the history of the industrial world, and people walk away with the impression that growth is slowing, we have a real problem.

Or perhaps it’s not a problem — to the White House at least. Our current roster of national challenges, including high unemployment, ballooning deficits and exploding health care costs, have been exacerbated by this rapid increase in the number of people trying to provide for their families. Such unprecedented population growth makes our current dilemmas harder, not easier, to resolve.

But legal and illegal immigration accounts for about two-thirds of our population growth, so, a lack of population awareness may be a necessary precondition to successful passage of so-called “comprehensive immigration reform.” Conversely, if the Census Bureau were to describe the millennium boom as the demographic tsunami that it actually represents, enthusiasm for amnesty provisions and increased legal immigration would likely implode.

It didn’t have to be this way.

Back in the late 1980s, demographers projected slowing growth, with US population peaking at 300 million around the year 2028. But some viewed this prospect with alarm; indeed, the 1990 Economic Report to the President warned of “impending labor shortages.”

With the blessings of big business, George H.W. Bush worked with liberal democrats to double the flow of legal immigration, shifting our demographic trajectory sky-high once again. We passed the 300 million mark not in the late 2020s but in 2006, and we’re still growing rapidly.

Multiple surveys show that a majority of the public want U.S. population growth to slow or stop. A well-informed debate about our nation’s demographic future is long overdue – notwithstanding the attempts by the Census Bureau to obscure our unprecedented growth. Before moving to further expand legal immigration or grant amnesty to millions of illegal immigrants, shouldn’t we ask ourselves: What kind of country do we want to leave for our children?

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Mark Powell, spokesperson for Vermonters for Sustainable Population, lives in Worcester VT, with his wife and son. He has been researching and writing about population growth, and in particular the politics of U.S. population growth, for over a decade. His writing has appeared in Wildlife Conservation Magazine, Population and Environment, and many Vermont state publications. He can be reached at: mjpwow@yahoo.com