Economic outlook is ‘strong to steady,’ except for mining

CHEYENNE — Wyoming’s economic outlook for the coming year is mixed, with experts predicting challenges in natural resources and mining, the financial sector and agriculture.

In other sectors, like manufacturing, travel and tourism, and construction, experts foresee a strong 2025.

“For most sectors, there is a strong to steady outlook for 2025,” said economist Anne Alexander, who led the second annual statewide economic outlook study conducted by the University of Wyoming’s Center for Business and Economic Analysis.

“The elephant in the room with Wyoming is always the coal sector, which has been suffering a decline. That is partially regulatory, but it is also market-driven. That looms large,” Alexander said.

Mining down overall, with ‘pockets’ of optimism

In 2025, the natural resources and mining industry is predicted to make up 7.6% of Wyoming’s employment sectors, whereas in 2014, the industry accounted for 12.06%. 

The forecast notes that Wyoming’s economy has, for decades, been based on boom-and-bust cycles, from coal-fired steam engines to natural resources that have “ebbed and flowed.” 

In 1953, the first coal-fired power plant came online, called Genesis Alkali, and — after decades of ups and downs — TerraPower announced its nuclear Naughton Power Plant would be located in Kemmerer in 2021.

“There is some optimism in some pockets around trona and rare earths, so while the sector has been declining, there are some opportunities there,” Alexander said.

Wyoming Business Council CEO Josh Dorrell said the continued downturn, which began over a decade ago, has a two-fold impact on Wyomingites. Because much of the state’s workforce works in natural resources, a downturn can affect unemployment rates, drastically changing communities and the career opportunities within them.

According to Alexander, the 40% drop in energy jobs represents a loss of about 10,000 positions.

In addition, Wyoming’s fiscal system is “heavily dependent” on natural resource extraction, not only for governmental operations, but also for school operations and the state’s educational system, Dorrell said.

“A lot of essential services in our communities are funded by those (industries), and it is really difficult in our communities when they go down,” Dorrell said. “That’s a challenge that we face.”

Challenges predicted in
finance, agriculture, housing and outmigration

Challenges in the financial sector largely have to do with the national economy, which the report says “has shown incredible resilience in 2024.” Prices remain higher than before the recent inflationary episode, but inflation rates have fallen to near healthy levels. 

However, “complex and challenging emerging indicators” temper experts’ enthusiasm for the U.S. economy’s growth in 2025, the report states.

Challenges in the agricultural sector are largely predicted because of devastating rangeland fires that swept across northern Wyoming in 2024. 

Several times this fall, Gov. Mark Gordon has emphasized the importance of responding to “an historically devastating wildfire season.” In his supplemental budget recommendation leading up to the 2025 general session, Gordon requested that $140 million be dedicated to firefighting and restoration efforts.

“Putting out the flames was long, hot, hard work. The harder work begins once the fires are out,” Gordon said in November. “Appropriate and adequate restoration needs to start right away, and, in some areas, will take years. The unusually high amount of burned private acres means a high degree of direct injury to our families and communities.”

Experts anticipate housing shortages will continue across Wyoming into 2025. 

To address that particular challenge, the Business Council has been working with The Growth Lab at Harvard Kennedy School, which specializes in economic growth and development policy research, looking specifically at Wyoming’s housing issues.

“Housing is a very big barrier to growth in Wyoming … and it’s affecting our ability to have a workforce. The businesses that are here have a hard time expanding, and it’s hard to recruit new businesses, in large part, due to lack of housing,” Dorrell said.

Supply and demand in housing is not elastic in Wyoming, because housing is over-regulated at the local level, Dorrell said. Working with agencies like the Wyoming Community Development Authority and others to create unique solutions for the state’s varied communities may help.

“This is another area that, outside of simply economics and economic development, we need to rally around solutions,” Dorrell said. “It’s going to take more than one solution to solve some of these problems, so working together (is key).”

The average hourly wage necessary to rent a two-bedroom apartment in Wyoming is $20.90, Alexander said, adding that a household bringing in a median income would likely struggle to afford a mortgage in Wyoming.

“Even just renting can be a challenge,” Alexander said. “So you have these really cool projects, but where are you going to put the people who are going to work on them? If we’re going to grow, if we’re going to diversify, we’re going to have to have a place for the workforce to live.”

Wyoming also continues to experience a large outmigration of college-educated youth, with around 37% of UW alumni who graduated between 2007 and 2024 still living in Wyoming.

“We have the second-largest (outmigration) in the United States,” Alexander said. “West Virginia is the highest, and we’re next.” 

The Wyoming Business Council held a panel discussion this fall with UW students called “Shaping Wyoming’s Future: A UW Student Panel” to discuss the challenge of keeping local talent in the state beyond graduation. Dorrell said that his organization will continue asking young Wyoming residents what would keep them closer to home.

“It’s easy for those of us who have carved out a place in Wyoming to say, ‘Well, we did it,’ but it’s our job to try to improve and understand our communities, our amenities, our job quality and complexity,” Dorrell said.

The positives: tech, 

research, venture capital and the report itself

In addition to challenges, the report includes what it calls “important positive opportunities for Wyoming in 2025,” especially in technology, research and development, and business formation. Wyoming ranks second in the nation in science and engineering degrees as a percentage of higher education degrees conferred, at 45.8%, compared to the U.S. average of 35.7%.

Venture capital disbursed per $1 million in gross state product in 2022 was $16,149.76, versus the U.S. average of $9,898.93; venture capital dollars disbursed per venture capital deal was $11.49 million, ranking Wyoming fifth nationally, versus the U.S. average of $10.14 million per deal.

Based on statewide averages, Wyoming’s residential property tax rates are still among the lowest in the nation. Based on property taxes paid as a percentage of owner-occupied housing value, Wyoming ranked #37 in 2022, the most recent year for which data was available.

Overall, the report states that growth will be “moderate” across the nation in 2025. And Wyoming “holds many opportunities and challenges.”

But even having a state-specific economic outlook is a step forward.

“Wyoming was the last state that didn’t have a homegrown economic forecast, so we’re glad to fill that void,” Alexander said.