JACKSON HOLE, Wyo. — Wyoming’s total resident population grew slightly to 578,803 as of July 2021, according to U.S. Census Bureau estimate. The annual increase from July 2020 totaled 1,536 persons or 0.3 percent, higher than the U.S. average of 0.1 percent.
Fifteen counties experienced population increases from July 2020 to July 2021. Lincoln County led the state with the fastest growth rate of 2.4 percent, followed by Sheridan (2.1%), Crook (1.9%), and Johnson (1.9%) counties. Campbell and Sweetwater counties suffered the steepest decreases, -1.5 and -1.3 percent, respectively. Laramie, the largest county, grew 0.2 percent, while Natrona, the second largest county, lost 674 residents, -0.8 percent during the year. These two Metropolitan Statistics Areas (MSAs) in the state had added the most residents between 2010 and 2020.
Two factors contributed to the change in population: natural change, which is the difference between births and deaths, and net migration, the difference between people moving into and out of an area.
At the state level, the net migration was 1,368, meaning that 1,368 more people moved into Wyoming than moved out between July 2020 and July 2021. The natural change accounted for only 171 (6,213 births less 6,042 deaths).
“Wyoming’s population growth from natural change has already declined steadily between 2008 and 2019 as birth rates dropped and Baby Boomers aged with increased mortality,” according to Dr. Wenlin Liu, Chief Economist with State of Wyoming, Economic Analysis Division.
In 2008, newborns were 8,134 while 4,183 residents died, leading to a natural increase of nearly 4,000 people. However, ten years later (prior to COVID-19), the natural increase was just below 1,500 as births decreased to 6,568 but deaths increased to 5,122 in 2019. Since then, the pandemic has further pulled down the number of births, but driven up the number of deaths to around 6,000 each annually in both 2020 and 2021.
Across the state, most counties showed negative natural change (more deaths than births). In contrast, less than one-third counties experienced natural decrease in 2019.
The dramatic decline in energy prices and the subsequent economic downturn in the mid-2010s forced many residents to leave the state. As a result, the state experienced consecutive years of negative net migration (more people left than moved into the state) between 2014 and 2019.
However, the direction of net migration reversed in both 2020 and 2021.
“Employment opportunities have always been the driving factor for Wyoming’s migration trend, but the pandemic also played a significant role in the past a couple of years,” said Dr. Liu. “Many people chose to relocate to less populated and lower cost areas during the pandemic, and the increased availability of remote work made this possible.”
Over two-thirds of Wyoming counties showed positive net migration, led by Sheridan (729), followed by Park (530) and Lincoln (447). On the other hand, large negative net migration occurred in Campbell (-907), Natrona (-650), and Sweetwater (-621) counties.
“The COVID-19 virus hit energy producing and serving areas especially hard as demand plummeted, and the rebound of the industry has been painfully slow, particularly in Wyoming,” stated Liu.
