Arecent YouGov poll asked Americans to estimate the size of various groups. One finding stands out above the others. Taylor Orth of YouGov writes, “When people’s average perceptions of group sizes are compared to actual population estimates, an intriguing pattern emerges: [Americans] tend to vastly overestimate the size of minority groups.” Among many other groups, this was true of millionaires, transgenders, Jews, atheists, vegans, Asian Americans, and African Americans.
The survey respondents estimated that 41 percent of Americans are black, when in reality, only 12 percent are. In one sense, this question should be especially easy. If you had looked up the percentage of Americans who are black at any point in the past 50 years and just said that answer, you’d pretty much be correct. African Americans as a share of the overall population have held very steady over time, staying within the narrow band between 11 and 13 percent since the mid 1970s.
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