Wyoming Economic Analysis Division: Wyoming Population Growth Rebounds

Wyoming's resident population is getting bigger, slowly.

As of July 2024, Wyoming’s resident population reached 587,61, which is 2,551 individuals from July 2023.

For nearly six consecutive years before 2019, the state saw more people leaving than moving into Wyoming. That, however has reversed.

Dr. Wenlin Liu, Chief Economist with the State of Wyoming, credits the pandemic for the trend of people moving from large cities with higher costs to less populated, lower-cost areas. That migration pattern has slowed down significantly, though.

In 2024, 861 more people moved to the state than left, but that is half of the growth 2023 saw.

Eleven counties experienced population increases from July 2023 to July 2024.

Crook County led the state with the fastest growth rate (2.4%), followed by Albany (1.7%) and Sheridan (1.2%) counties. Niobrara and Washakie counties experienced the steepest decreases, -1.1 percent and -1.0 percent, respectively.

Laramie and Natrona counties, the only two Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs) in the state, grew moderately at 0.7 percent and 0.6 percent correspondingly.

Aside from migration, natural change is a contributing factor to the population. From July 2023 to 2024, there were 6,037 births and 5,634 deaths.

This is also a reversal from pre-pandemic natural changes.

Nevertheless, the ongoing decrease in the fertility rate and the aging of the baby boomer generation (born between 1946 and 1964) have significantly reduced the population growth from natural increase compared to pre-pandemic levels.

Across the state, approximately half of the counties showed negative natural change (more deaths than births), and most of them are small and rural counties such as Hot Springs, Johnson, Niobrara, and Platte where nearly 30 percent of their population was 65 years and over. In contrast, Campbell, Albany, and Laramie counties experienced large natural increases in 2024.