Utah’s population is set to grow by 2 million people by 2065, according to a new study out of the University of Utah. That's a jump of nearly 56% from 3.6 million people now to an projected 5.6 million.
Wyoming’s population, by contrast, will grow significantly slower than that.
At the current pace of 0.4% growth seen each of the last three years, as reported by the Wyoming Economic Analysis Division, it will take the lowest populated state in the nation 170 years to hit 1 million, or not until the year 2195.
Researchers with the Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute released the latest iteration of its long-term planning projections for the state of Utah. The projections, which the institute does every four years, took 15 months of development and review to complete.
According to their assessment, Utah’s population is on track for significant grouth over the next 40 years through 2065. That’s equivalent to adding Utah's current population of its northern neighbor, Idaho.
“We recognize a lot of things can change in 40 years, but we do think it’s a very likely scenario,” said Mallory Bateman, director of demographic research at the Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute. “Utah’s population has grown pretty consistently, and having an idea of what the future might look like is a helpful tool for our state.”
Life, Death, Migration
Bateman said migration will be the primary factor driving Utah’s future. It was one of the essential factors examined as part of the new long-term population projections.
"Since it’s a demographic and economic model, we basically look at births, deaths, and migration,” she said. “We know that the majority of the people who move to Utah are younger adults, so that makes a big impact on our growth looking out into the future.”
Births and deaths are simpler to factor into these models. Bateman classified those as consistent “behaviors” that can be tracked over time.
According to Bateman, Utah has been following national trends in terms of life and death. There are more older Americans than younger ones.
“Utah’s fertility rate has been declining for the last 15 years, and we think that decline will continue slightly out into the future,” she said. “The broad trends of aging and declining fertility rates are something we're seeing across the U.S., and that makes an impact on that side of the growth balance.”
Bateman noted that Utah has several “unique demographic characteristics” that will determine its future trajectory. It’s still the youngest state in the nation and has one of the highest average household sizes, with several fast-growing areas projected to continue their growth in the decades to come.
Even while Utah is subject to the persistent national trend of declining fertility rates and an aging population, Bateman is confident that the state's population will see a significant increase over the next 40 years. The driving force behind that growth will be migration.
Economic Events
Migration is trickier to incorporate because it’s heavily tied to less predictable factors, such as the economy. Nevertheless, Bateman said migration will be a more dominant demographic factor in Utah’s future.
“Migration is really driven by the economy, so that's where the economic side of the model comes in, but that's working with the assumption that the economy continues to grow,” she said.
One way to add more credibility to migration as a dominant source of population growth is to include “special economic events and situations” that have been announced or are underway in Utah’s future.
Bateman cited energy development, specifically renewable energy projects, the proposed Uinta Basin Rail project, and the 2034 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City as examples of significant economic events that were included in the model.
“Historically, you can see some areas have a steep increase in population because a big project is being constructed, followed by a decline after it’s finished,” she said. “When there’s some kind of research and data behind these economic events, we can think about them in a more confident way.”
Their research forecasts the creation of an additional 1.2 million jobs in Utah over the 40-year horizon, with 600,000 jobs in Salt Lake City alone. The industries with the largest job growth are health care and social assistance, professional, scientific, and technical services, and finance.
Those jobs will be accompanied by a household growth from 1.2 million in 2025 to 2.3 million in 2065.
“As long as there are more jobs that people want to fill, we think migration is going to be a more dominant part of our growth,” she said.
Wyoming Isn’t Utah
If there are another 2 million people in Utah by 2065, there’s a question of what that could mean for Wyoming. Will the Cowboy State’s population grow at a similar rate over the same period?
Unlikely, according to Wenlin Liu, administrator and chief economist of the Wyoming Department of Administration and Information’s economic analysis division.
The short version of his assessment: Wyoming isn’t Utah.
“Utah’s population has already been one of the fastest increasing in the country for many years,” he said. “Their fertility rate is declining, but it’s still much higher than most other states, and they’ve had one of the highest population increases from net migration.”
Despite bordering each other, Wyoming and Utah have had vastly different trajectories over the last century. Liu said a key indicator of the differences between them is their economies, which are fundamentally different.
“Wyoming had a very high net migration during the oil boom of the 1970s and early 1980s, followed by a big bust in the mid-'80s,” he said. “During the California recession in the early 1990s, many people came to Wyoming. During the natural gas boom in the 2000s, we had another wave.”
The pattern is obvious: Wyoming’s population gains and losses have been determined by the booms and busts of its extractive industries. Utah’s economy is affected by these industries, but not beholden to them in the same way.
That means that tiny growth of 0.4% seen over the last three years could change dramatically during boom cycles.
Wyoming has the same demographic issues as Utah, with low fertility rates and an aging population. The key difference, according to Liu, is that there are more jobs and opportunities in Utah than in Wyoming.
“Utah is just different,” Liu said. “Like Colorado, their economic structure had a lot more industries and a higher base population. When neighboring states increase their labor force, they have to bring in people from other states, which makes it harder to increase Wyoming's population."
As Utah creates more jobs across more industries, it’ll attract people from Wyoming and other states, contributing to its overall population growth. According to Liu, Wyoming’s lack of economic diversity could be a contributing factor to Utah’s population growth.
“Fossil fuel demand may increase due to power demand from AI centers, but the rate of increase won't be that fast,” he said. “Even with an increase in jobs, we can only attract a certain number of a certain type of people. Our economy is just different.”
Open To Change
The Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute’s population projections are subject to change, which is why they do a new one every four years. Bateman noted that the latest iteration is actually “more moderate” than the one released in 2021.
“One thing that is interesting is that the growth has actually moderated,” she said. “We thought we were going to hit 5.6 million people by 2060, but our input data changed that trajectory and moderated that growth in the long run.”
These studies are useful tools for those people planning Utah’s future. A gain of 2 million people in 40 years will have tremendous implications for that state’s infrastructure and government administration.
Utah isn’t Wyoming, so nobody's looking at the projections developed by Bateman and her colleagues as a reliable roadmap for Wyoming to follow. The states might border each other, but in many significant ways, they couldn’t be more different.
“Each state is pretty different in what its population looks like now, and each state has a pretty unique economic environment,” she said. “That makes an impact on what growth looks like in the future. It's not just plotting a line looking back and looking out into the future. There's a little bit more nuance to it, and there could be big changes in the next four years.”
Wyoming has its own long-term planning projections forecasting the state’s population out to 2040. Liu believes that Utah is already riding a wave of momentum that is only growing, and Wyoming will be following a different future.
“Wyoming’s population will be growing, but slowly,” he said. “It’s hard to forecast, but based on the historical trends, we won’t reach Utah. That’s the fact for the future, based on what we’re seeing today.”
Andrew Rossi can be reached at arossi@cowboystatedaily.com.
