Carbon County sees boomer increase, population decrease

Carbon County’s population decline, or net outmigration, and the state’s increase in baby boomers marks some trends in a recent report by the Wyoming Economic Analysis Division.

The population in Carbon County declined more than in any other county in Wyoming from July 2022 to July 2023, according to a report by WEAD.

The population decline for Carbon County during this period was 1.4% or 203 persons, said Wenlin Liu, Chief Economist with the Wyoming Economic Analysis Division.

Population numbers are based on the 2023 U.S. Census Bureau estimate. The July 2024 estimate will be released in December 2024.

By contrast, the population of the state as a whole increased by 1.2% since the 2020 Census—slightly faster than the U.S. rate of 1.0%.

The population of Saratoga, Wyoming in 2010 was 1,690 people, according to the Wyoming Economic Analysis Division website at http://eadiv.state.wy.us/pop/wyc&sc30.pdf.

The population of Saratoga, Wyoming as of the 2022 U.S. Census data is 1,747 people, according to city-data.com.

Emery Penner, Director of Public Works/Planning and Zoning Administrator for Saratoga, said, “We know the last few years we have done more housing units than we have done in a while. But we have also lost housing stock to AirBNBs as well during that time. People have also moved away during these last years as well. I would think it would be difficult at this point in time to accurately articulate what is happening to the population of Saratoga.”

Wyoming had the highest increase in population aging in the U.S. between 2022 and 2023.

“The elderly population (age 65 and over) in the state grew 3.5% between July 2022 and July 2023,” according to a release by the Wyoming Economics Analysis Division. “In comparison, Wyoming’s total population only grew 0.4 percent during the year.”

“Though the impact from Baby Boomers (born between 1946 and 1964) aging was the main reason, outmigration of young people and decline in fertility rate also played roles,” Liu said in the release.

Wyoming has one of the largest proportions of baby boomers in the U.S.

“About 30% of movers (into the state or out of the state) are 20-29 years old in recent years,” Liu told the Sun. “The massive net in-migration in the 1970s and the massive net out-migration in the mid-1980s are mostly responsible for Wyoming's current age structure of the population—one of the highest proportions of baby boomers and one of the lowest proportions of Generation X in the U.S.”

The energy downturn between 2014 and 2019 is the reason for the increase in the number of people who left the state, according to the release.

“The state experienced nearly six consecutive years of negative net migration (more people left than moved into the state) between 2014 and 2019 due to the energy downturn. However, the direction of net migration has since reversed.”

“Energy driven employment opportunity is always the leading factor for Wyoming’s migration trend, however the pandemic specifically played a larger role in recent years,” said Liu in the release.

“A number of professionals with higher income and telework capabilities chose to relocate to less populated and lower cost areas during the pandemic,” the release states. “Nearly three-fourths of Wyoming’s counties showed positive net migration from 2022 to 2023, led by Sheridan (542), similar to the trends seen in the previous couple of years. Only six counties experienced negative net migration led by Carbon (-193), Sweetwater (-192), and Teton (-166).”