The Mountain West includes some of the country's strongest state economies, according to a new analysis, but the region's overall economic health doesn't extend to every state.
WalletHub, the personal finance website, evaluated states based on 28 economic metrics, such as unemployment rate, entrepreneurship activity, the share of jobs in high-tech industries, and growth in gross domestic product. Utah ranked as the second-strongest economy in the country, trailing only the state of Washington. Colorado ranked No. 4 and Idaho No. 6.
Coastal states used to dominate the rankings, but that’s changed since the pandemic, said WalletHub analyst Jill Gonzalez, “because that's when you really saw different state economies doing different things and adapting differently.”
To that end, some Mountain West states focused on attracting more high-tech companies with high-paying jobs. For Idaho, that played a role in the state’s GDP rising nearly 5% in 2022 compared to 2021. Gonzalez called that year-over-year increase “very high – almost unheard of.”
But not all of the Mountain West’s state economies are as red-hot. Nevada ranked No. 21 and has the nation’s highest unemployment rate at 5.4%. Montana, which has one of the lowest unemployment rates (2.3%), ranked No. 25.
Meanwhile, New Mexico’s economy ranked No. 36 and Wyoming’s ranked No. 40, the latter dragged down by scoring No. 49 in the percentage of jobs in high-tech industries.
This story was produced by the Mountain West News Bureau, a collaboration between Wyoming Public Media, Nevada Public Radio, Boise State Public Radio in Idaho, KUNR in Nevada, the O'Connor Center for the Rocky Mountain West in Montana, KUNC in Colorado, KUNM in New Mexico, with support from affiliate stations across the region. Funding for the Mountain West News Bureau is provided in part by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
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