Utah’s Economy Leads the Nation Out of the Pandemic
Utah is number one again: our economic recovery from the pandemic leads the nation.
The federal Bureau of Economic Analysis reports that the nation’s real gross domestic product fell at a 1.3 percent compounded rate between 2020’s first and fourth quarters. In contrast, Utah actually grew through the pandemic at a 4.3 percent rate, the best in the country. Utah’s retail sales increased 8.3 percent, also the best in the nation.
This outstanding accomplishment was achieved while Utah had the sixth-lowest per capita COVID-19 death rate and has the nation’s lowest unemployment rate at 2.9 percent.
So how did we do it? In short, our great state government and our great people.
I give a lot of credit to our state government for avoiding the blanket lockdown orders that exacerbated the tragic rise in depression, drug and alcohol abuse, and domestic strife evident in stringent lockdown states.
A working paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research, written by researchers from Harvard, Johns Hopkins and Duke, forecasts that as many as 890,000 premature deaths may result from stringent COVID-19 lockdowns beyond those attributable to COVID-19 itself. The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that one-quarter of young adults between the ages of 18 to 24, for whom social interactions are vital, have considered suicide.
Taking factors like these into account, Utah along with other moderate states balanced the need to slow the pandemic with measures that took account of the serious problems caused by the lockdown itself.
The great people of Utah get credit for our low per capita COVID-19 death rate. While some flaunted their disobedience to state masking and social distancing guidelines, most of us chose to follow the common-sense guidance from state and local health officials.
The upshot: the Salt Lake City metro area’s job market is the hottest in the nation, ranking first of 53 large metropolitan labor markets, better than other job hot spots such as Austin, Denver, Indianapolis, and Kansas City. The rankings were based on five labor market indicators: the average unemployment rate, the labor-force participation rate, the change in payrolls, weekly wages, and the percentage increase in the size of the workforce.
The Salt Lake City metro area’s red hot tech sector benefitted from fewer business shutdowns, moderate COVID-19 health consequences, and a young and well-educated population.
Ogden’s labor market was first in the nation among 328 smaller metro areas with fewer than 1 million residents last year while Provo’s ranked 17th.
WalletHub’s new list of the best small cities to start a business ranked St. George first in the nation with Cedar City second and Washington City fourth. Twenty-seven small Utah cities were ranked in the top 100 out of 1,337 cities around the country with populations under 100,000.
In the past, I’ve highlighted Utah’s outstanding track record that places it first in the nation on a variety of different measures including our nation-leading early COVID-19 recovery record and the influx of new families and workers attracted by our dynamism.
Moody Analytics explained that “Workers gravitated to these places due to the job opportunities, lower costs and a quieter lifestyle that appealed to some migrants from bigger population centers who were now allowed to work remotely. Coming out of the pandemic, and out of this recession, their edge is probably only going to get larger.”
These new workers brought their families with them: Utah was the fastest-growing state in the union, growing 18.4 percent from 2010 to 2020.
The beat goes on!
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