In American terminology, minority status depends on your "racial category", "ethnicity", and your gender, among other things. There are six officially recognis

In American terminology, minority status depends on your "racial category", "ethnicity", and your gender, among other things. There are six officially recognised racial categories: White, African American, American Indian/Alaskan Native, Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Other Pacific Islander. There are two official ethnicities: Hispanic and Latino Americans, and Not Hispanic and Latino. (Note: Hispanic is actually a cultural group, not an ethnicity, and in the real world the terms hispanic and latino are orthogonal. Try not to think about it too hard) Most hispanics and latinos are officially categorised as white. That means that whenever you see the term "white" you'll need to do some further digging to see if that means the official "white term (including most hispanics), or if it's a short hand for "white, non-hispanic and latino". The 77% you cite as "white" includes latinos; the number you probably are looking for is 61%. The 56% in google's numbers seems to exclude latino's, so the comparison is probably 56% to 61%. (Probably!) Also note that if your goal is equity for all groups, it doesn't make much sense to average minorities together. The Hispanic and latino group (including both whites and non-whites) makes up 18% of the US population, but the apparent matching group at Google makes up 4% of their employee base. Conversely, Asians make up about 5% of the US population, but apparently around 35% of Google's employee base using the closest equivalent measure. Clearly Google shouldn't get a pass for discriminating against hispanics (if that is indeed what they're doing) purely because they discriminate in favour of Asians (if that is indeed what they're doing). > Doesn't that mean that racial minorities are actually overrepresented at Google? Some (well, one) are. Others are not. Non-hispanic white's are broadly in line with the major population share.