Once Immune, Utah Is Feeling Economic Dip

[Omaha Steve]

Source: NY Times



By KIRK JOHNSON

SALT LAKE CITY — In the economic boom that thundered through Utah over the last few years, many people saw a kind of perfect chemistry at work.

What demographers call Utah’s special story — its population is the youngest in the nation by far and one of the fastest growing, mainly from large Mormon families — was paying off, melding with a surging engine of growth in Utah’s backyard and throughout the world.

Between November 2006 and November 2007, Utah created more jobs than Pennsylvania, a state five times the population. Construction spiked at the same time as a giant wave of 20-somethings — another wrinkle unique to Utah, a baby boom echo long after the rest of the country’s — entered the worlds of work, housing and family.


Ramin Rahimian for The New York Times
Ari Bishop sells training packages to people learning to work a new growth sector: foreclosures and bank-owned properties.


But economists, employers and residents now say the very forces that made Utah roar — in the types of jobs that grew, especially construction and manufacturing — also pulled the state more firmly into the national and global economic web. And some of the distinctive traits that looked like strengths, like the low numbers of retirees, now seem like chinks in the armor. Retirees, who have flocked to places like Montana and Idaho, are likely to have interest and investment income to spend no matter what happens, while wage earners, who dominate Utah’s economy, could suffer in a downturn.


Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/24/us/24utah.html?ex=1204434000&en=7528eebe937d765c&ei=5043&partner=EXCITE

[Speciesamused]

1. Harder than times in 29, Hader than Japanese arithimatic...

I am 45. I have never seen the American Economy
as bad as it is now. We are an average blue collar family.
We are fortunate we paid our little house off early on.
But it is maddening that the government manipulates
numbers and tells people to sit back everything is OK!
When the average person does not make a living wage.
Disheartening for me to see so many families struggling
All Hail King George.
Peace.

[nealmhughes]

2. I told my 21 year old nephew that if I were he, I would study Czech or Bulgarian alongside French.

It really is sad when we see a dynamic free reality based peaceful EU from Iceland to Turkey and then the USA. . . who would have thunk it? Old friends' parents are moving back to Budapest. They came in the aftermath of '55. My old boss' parents have already moved back to Krk a decade ago after they retired, and have urged his children to go to college in Zagreb.

[BearSquirrel2]

3. Youngest state ...

Jeesh, that means more mormons.

[fasttense]

4. I guess all that money from the Amway Pyramid scheme really helped

Utah. We should have a pyramid scheme for each state. That way we all can have a perfect chemistry.

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

5. Economic Dip:

Economic Dip