Census tracks the hard times

WASHINGTON - The recession has profoundly disrupted American life: More people are delaying marriage and home-buying; turning to carpools, and staying put rather than moving to new cities.

A broad array of U.S. census data being released today also shows a dip in the foreign-born population last year to 37.97 million, a decline of nearly 99,000 from 2007, when it was at an all-time high. The drop occurred as fewer low-skilled workers from Mexico were searching for jobs in Arizona, Florida and California.

Minnesota mirrored the national decline in mobility, with an increase in the percentage of people living in the same house compared with 2007 and a decline in those who have moved to the state from elsewhere in the United States. With a national housing market collapse, people couldn't move even if they'd wanted to, noted Minnesota state demographer Tom Gillaspy.

The figures are from the annual American Community Survey, a sweeping look at life built on information from 3 million households compiled by the U.S. Census Bureau.

Gillaspy said the economic disruptions of 2008 -- from $4 gasoline to the collapse of major investment banks -- made it the demographic equivalent of "multiple years in one year." Data on income and poverty are expected later this week, and Gillaspy said he'll be particularly interested to look at trends in the age of retiring workers. Last year about 15.5 percent of Americans 65 and over were in the labor force, up from 15 percent in 2007. The percentage in Minnesota was even higher: 16 percent.

Preliminary data earlier this year found that many Americans were not moving, staying put in big cities rather than migrating to the Sunbelt because of frozen lines of credit. Mobility is at a 60-year low, upending population trends ahead of the 2010 census that will be used to apportion House seats.

The percentage of people that drove alone to work dropped last year to 75.5 percent, the lowest in a decade. Decreases were particularly evident in states with higher traffic congestion, such as Maryland, Texas and Washington.

Average commute times edged up to 25.5 minutes, erasing years of decreases to stand at the level of 2000. Minnesota commuters, however, had enough time for an additional soft-boiled egg, with the average commute taking 3.1 minutes less than the national average.

Palmdale, Calif., a suburb in the high desert north of Los Angeles, posted the longest commute at 41.5 minutes. Shortest commute time: Bloomington, Ill., at 14.1 minutes.

The dip in foreign-born residents comes as the government considers immigration changes, including stepped-up border enforcement and a path toward U.S. citizenship. At nearly 38 million, immigrants made up 12.5 percent of the population in 2008; an estimated 11.9 million are here illegally. Roughly half the states showed declines in the number of immigrants from 2007 to 2008.

Only 6.5 percent of Minnesota residents are foreign-born. That number has remained steady since 2006. The highest share of foreign-born Minnesotans -- more than one-third -- is from Asia.

The number of foreign-born and minority residents often tracked closely with how a state ranked in the levels of uninsured.

Democratic proposals to overhaul health insurance would exclude illegal immigrants from benefits, but Republicans contend the prohibition is meaningless because of lax enforcement.