Don’t be alarmed that minorities in America will constitute a majority in less than two generations. Instead, follow the money.

Recently, the U.S. Census Bureau projected that people of color will constitute a majority by 2042 — eight years earlier than previous estimates.

But we all knew that was coming at some point, and the racial composition of this country should not concern us anyway. People have obsessed about that long enough. And blacks, Native-Americans, Latinos, Arab-Americans and Asian-Americans have suffered enormously from white America’s obsession with race.

What should really concern us in this country is not how fair our complexion is but how fair our society is.

In one important respect, people of color already constitute a majority. They’re a majority of those living below the poverty line.

According to the Census Bureau, 12 percent of the population lived in poverty in 2006. Yet more than half of those in poverty were blacks, Latinos and Asian-Americans.

Among the 17 percent of American children living in poverty, fully two-thirds were children of color. The fact that communities of color are roughly 30 percent of the American population but the majority of those living in poverty is a sad commentary on the accumulated impact of unequal opportunity, which still persists today.

Discrimination made it nearly impossible for blacks and Latinos to benefit from the expansion of homeownership and college degrees that created the white middle class after World War II. That decades-long delay in access to middle class stability led whites to have an average net worth five times that of Latinos and blacks.

But the economic struggles of communities of color reflect cracks in our nation’s economic foundation that affect all Americans.

Between 1979 and 2005, the top 5 percent of American families saw their real incomes grow by 81 percent while the bottom 20 percent saw their incomes decline. Today’s subprime mortgage foreclosure crisis is hitting first-time homebuyers of all colors. The skyrocketing costs of health care premiums (among those even fortunate enough to have insurance), the decline in the quality of public education alongside the rise in college tuition costs, the rising prices of gas and food — all of these problems hit people of all races.

Our flawed economy has left most Americans struggling to get by. And the only real “minority” are those who continue to see their profits rise.

No doubt, the fear of many middle class and poor whites over a perceived usurping of power may make them want to link their fates with the privileged whites at the top. But they fail to see that the structures keeping people of color poor are also making their own lives worse.

The richest 1 percent of U.S. households now owns 34 percent of the nation's private wealth, more than the combined wealth of the bottom 90 percent of the population.

All of us who are in that bottom 90 percent share an interest in having an economy that works for everyone. Rather than dividing ourselves by race, we should unite for an America that benefits the vast majority — regardless of the complexion of that majority.

Sean Thomas-Breitfeld helps direct ideas work at the Center for Community Change, a national nonprofit devoted to enhancing the leadership, voice and power of those most affected by social and economic injustice. He can be reached at pmproj [at] progressive [dot] org.