Muslims are expected to outnumber Jews in America soon, according to a new estimate by the Pew Research Center.
Because of immigration and a higher birthrate, the Muslim share of the population is expected to rise to 2.1% in 2050. Currently, around 3.3 million Muslims live in the United States, one percent of the total population. 1.8 percent of Americans are Jewish, and 0.7 percent Hindus.
However, the US Census Bureau does not ask questions about religion, meaning that there is no official government breakdown of the American population by religious affiliation.
“There has been little net change in the size of the American Muslim population in recent years due to conversion,” said the Pew Research Center. "About one-in-five American Muslim adults were raised in a different faith or none at all. At the same time, a similar number of people who were raised Muslim no longer identify with the faith.”
The Pew findings are part a demographic projection of religious groups in the United States that also estimates that 5.7 million "Jews by religion" currently live in the United States. In 2014, the Pew Research Center published a detailed demographic study of American Jewry that distinguished those surveyed who defined themselves as "Jews by religion" and "Jews of no religion," meaning secular Jews.
The latest study found that America's Muslim population will grow faster than the Hindu population and much faster than the Jewish population in the coming decades. Muslims are projected to become the second-largest religious group in the country in about 20 years from now, a position currently held by American Jews.
