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Continued Growth of the Sun Belt
As the 1990s passed, the growth of the Sun Belt continued in states like Arizona, Texas, and Florida. Their low taxes and business-friendly policies attracted millions of people and businesses. Industries that had been established in the post-World War II era such as the aerospace industry continued thriving. Also, new industries such as those in Silicon Valley—the collective term for the high-technology industry—expanded. Companies like IBM and Microsoft became the Standard Oil and Carnegie Steel of this new era. More than 2,000 tech-related companies would eventually occupy Silicon Valley and would contribute to 40 percent of California’s exports, adding more than 200,000 jobs during the 1990s.
New Immigration
As America moved beyond 2000, the American population began graying—growing steadily older, on average. As life expectancy increased due to better health care, the fastest-growing segments of the population were above 65 years old. America’s overall population, however, surpassed 320 million by 2015, and this was primarily due to an expansion of immigration. By 2000, more than 10 percent of the American population was foreign-born, a proportion not seen since the late eighteenth century. Hispanics became the largest minority group, growing from 6 percent of the population in 1980 to 18 percent by 2015.
