Wyoming's brain drain, youth exodus slowed during pandemic
Three years ago, millennials became the largest living adult population in the United States, but not in Wyoming, where a steady flow of young people have migrated out of the state for years.
A recent report by the Department of Workforce Services noted a 6% decrease in Wyoming’s millennial population between 2014 and 2020. That comes despite a slowdown of youth exodus in 2019-2020 and anecdotal evidence that fewer millennials left during the pandemic.
“It could be that with the COVID pandemic, there wasn’t as much reason to travel to another state to find work because it affected everybody, not just us,” Michael Moore, author of the report, said.
That wasn’t the only impact the pandemic had on Wyoming’s demographics.
Wyoming’s overall population grew modestly between 2020 and 2021 according to the latest release from the Economic Analysis Division. The authors noted “the majority of the State’s population increase was from people moving into the state.” Amy Bittner, the principal economist with the division, stated “COVID-19 may have prompted more people to move to Wyoming than leave the state.”
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