New Census Data Shows Maine Continues to Be Least Diverse State In the Nation

The Census Bureau released new information on Thursday from the results of the 2020 data collected by the bureau last year. Each state and county in the United States was assigned a Diversity Index score which, according to Census.gov, measures 'the probability that two people were chosen at random will be from different racial and ethnic groups.

Overall, the nation is becoming much more diverse according to the new data but Maine continues to stay super white with a diversity score the lowest in the nation at 18.5 percent. That's well below the national average of 61.1 percent. In 2010, the nation's diversity score was at 54.9 and has seen a nearly seven-point increase in a decade.

Coming in at second place with the census data collected was a tie between West Virginia and Vermont, who both scored 20.2 percent.

Maine has consistently been the whitest state in the nation since at least 2000, according to Census data.

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The most diverse states in the nation included Hawaii, which was the most diverse in the nation with a diversity score of 76 percent. California came in second with a diversity index of 69.7 percent and Nevada came in third with 68.8 percent.

Other data shared in the new information shows that while most of Maine saw no or decreasing population changes, only three Maine counties saw an increase in population, and all were located in the southernmost counties in the state.

[Source: U.S. Census Bureau]

This trend for Maine is a trend happening nationwide. Most rural parts of states are decreasing in population while the more urban areas are increasing in population.