By 2020, California will be older and dominated by Hispanics

Jennifer Coleman:

By 2020, California will be more crowded, its population older and its racial composition dominated by Hispanics, changes that will challenge a state with already-strained schools and health care systems, according to a new report.

The report released Tuesday by the California Budget Project found the state will add 10 million residents in 15 years, when one in seven Californians will be age 65 or older and Hispanics will account for 43 percent of the population and whites about 34 percent.

The report, "Planning for California's Future," examined Census data and figures from the California Department of Finance. While it did not offer recommendations, it was designed to warn lawmakers of the coming demographic shifts.

"The message here is really that this is what's coming. This is what's in front of us," said Barbara Baran, associate director of the organization and the report's author. "This is the beginning of another budget cycle, and we need to take an approach that is longer term, that doesn't look at isolated issues."

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has suggested a multibillion-dollar bond to rebuild and expand California's freeways, bridges, levees and schools, which Baran said is important in light of the state's projected population growth.

But that proposal should be examined "in the context of other challenges — child care, elder care, health care — that are really emerging," Baran said.

Lawmakers are focusing on infrastructure because it has been long neglected in favor of investments in social programs, said Assemblyman Rick Keene, R-Chico.

Improving roads and levees, which protect homes and the state's water supply, will only help the state as it adds the expected 10 million new residents by 2020, he said.

A 71 percent increase in residents age 65 and older could tax government-funded health care programs such as Medi-Cal, the report said. That age group has traditionally been very politically active, said Keene, who is vice chairman of the Assembly Budget Committee.

"I don't think there's any danger of them being a silent population," he said. "They will make sure their voices are heard" at the state Capitol.

The education system will be affected by changes in both racial and age demographics, the report said.

Enrollment in public schools is expected to increase by 7.3 percent, or about 430,000 children by 2020. But that is a slower pace than the previous decade, when it jumped by 21 percent between 1990 and 2000.

More than half of California's school-age children will be Hispanic by 2014, with a "significant minority" expected to be English-language learners, researchers found.

Standardized tests have shown a stubborn gap between white and Hispanic students in academic achievement, the researchers noted. The 2005 Standardized Testing and Reporting program found that 25 percent of Hispanic students scored proficient or better in English, while 58 percent of white students hit that mark.

That discrepancy coupled with Hispanics' growing political clout probably will result in calls for greater investment in public education, the report said.

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