- Utah's economy outperforms the U.S. with a 4.5% GDP growth in 2024.
- Utah's unemployment rate is 3.2%, better than the national average of 4.2%.
- Poll shows 52% of Utah voters believe local economy is on right track.
SALT LAKE CITY — In spite of swirling punditry parsing the subtleties of pesky inflation, interest rate adjustments and potential tariff-induced calamities, the overall U.S. economy is showing persistent good stead.
And the Utah economy is doing even better, outperforming the nation on a slew of metrics and functioning at a level that is the envy of most other states.
Interestingly, data gathered in new statewide polling conducted by Deseret News in partnership with the University of Utah's Hinckley Institute of Politics finds Utah voters are of two minds when it comes to their feelings about our local fiscal health versus that of the nation.
US economy solid but Utah better
More, mostly positive U.S. economic news emerged Thursday with the June jobs report from the Labor Department showing U.S. employers added 147,000 positions in June, easily outperforming pre-report estimates of around 110,000 new jobs. The national unemployment rate also defied an expected uptick, instead dropping a tenth of a percent to 4.1% last month.
While the headline numbers reflect a robust U.S. labor market, last month's job gains were overwhelmingly driven by two sectors — health care and government — and some economists registered concerns that the concentrated growth areas mask lagging performance across the broader employment spectrum.
"The U.S. job market continues to largely stand tall and sturdy, even as headwinds mount — but it may be a tent increasingly held up by fewer poles," wrote Cory Stahle, economist at Indeed Hiring Lab, per a report from CNBC. "The headline job gains and surprising dip in unemployment are undoubtedly good news, but for job seekers outside of health care and social assistance, local government, and public education, the gains will likely ring hollow."
Utah has plenty to be happy about at the moment when it comes to its own employment landscape, with the latest data from the Department of Workforce Services showing the state added nearly 43,000 jobs in May, a volume that pushes the state's year-over-year jobs growth rate to 2.5%, more than doubling the national annual rate of 1.1%.
The Beehive State is also easily outpacing most of the nation when it comes to unemployment, with the Utah jobless rate at 3.2% in May, a full percentage point better than the U.S. average of 4.2% that month.
"Utah continues to experience strong job growth, particularly in the private sector," said Ben Crabb, chief economist with the Utah Department of Workforce Services. "While the unemployment rate saw a slight increase, the state's economy remains robust."
Economic slowdown
Gross domestic product is a value measure of all the goods and services produced in a certain time period and a common metric for assessing overall economic vitality and direction.
The latest U.S. GDP reading for the first quarter of 2025 showed a marked slowdown with growth moving into negative territory for the first time in three years.
But the 0.5% contraction in the first three months of the year comes with an asterisk. U.S. import volumes soared earlier in the year as retailers and manufacturers stockpiled inventory and raw goods aiming to beat a raft of new trade tariffs instituted by President Donald Trump. The collective value of imported items is subtracted from the overall GDP measure.
As of July 3, the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta's GDPNow tracker estimates second quarter GDP growth is on pace for a 2.6% growth rate. GDP growth in the 2% to 3% range is considered to be a normal or healthy rate of economic expansion.
And while the U.S. clocked solid 2.8% GDP growth in 2024, Utah blew past that national rate, and every other state in the country, with a 4.5% year-over-year GDP jump last year and broke the $300 billion mark for the first time with $301 billion in economic activity in 2024.
Utah is also holding down the No. 1 spot in cumulative GDP growth over the last 10 years with a 64% rate.
How voters feel about local, national economies
The new Deseret News/Hinckley Institute of Politics poll found Utah voters, overall, are mostly bullish on the local economy but much less so when it comes to the state of the country's fiscal health.
When asked, "Do you think Utah's economy is on the right track or is it off on the wrong track?" 52% of poll participants said the right track, 34% said the wrong track and 13% reported they didn't know or weren't sure.
When pollsters asked the same question about the American economy, 51% said they felt the country's economy was on the wrong track, 38% said the right track and 11% of respondents weren't sure or didn't know.
Parsed by self-reported political affiliation, poll participants were deeply divided when it came to their relative takes on local and national economic performance.
On the national economy question, 56% of Republican respondents said they feel the U.S. is on the right track, while only 18% of Democrats agreed. About a third of Republicans, 32%, were among the group of Utah voters who feel the nation is on the wrong economic track, as were 78% of Democratic respondents.
Utahns' collective difference of opinion narrowed a bit on the Utah economic questions as 64% of Republicans said they believe the state is on the right economic track against 38% of Democrats. About 1 in 4 Republicans, 23%, reported they believe Utah is on the wrong track, economically while 46% of Democrats shared that sentiment.
HarrisX conducted the poll of 805 registered Utah voters May 16-21. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.
