Population's rise slowed in 2008

Utah for years grew by more than 80,000 residents annually — the equivalent of adding a new city the size of Ogden. But it slowed down this year, adding only about 58,000 people, the equivalent of adding just a Taylorsville city or Tooele County.

Why? State officials say economic slowdowns in the rest of the country finally started hitting here also, so fewer people are attracted to Utah for what had been its much brighter economic opportunities.

"We're still getting a net in-migration — just not as much," said state demographer Juliette Tennert. "It's not that our economy is totally bad. It's not. It's just that the economic downturns that happened earlier elsewhere started to catch up here."

The Utah Population Estimates Committee on Thursday figured that the state's population on July 1 this year was 2.76 million — up 2.2 percent, or 58,225 people from a year earlier.

It based that on a formula that considered such data as increases in LDS Church membership in Utah (up 1.9 percent in the year), increases in the number of people whom Utahns claimed as exemptions on federal tax returns (up 5.8 percent), increased housing starts (up 2.2 percent) and increases in school enrollments (up 2.2 percent).

State planning coordinator Mike Mower said. "In 2007, we increased our population at the rate of 10 people an hour. This year our growth was seven people an hour."

Of the estimated increase this year, about 41,577 is considered "natural" — the difference between births and deaths — and 16,648 is estimated to come from immigration from outside the state. In comparison, Tennert said, the state had been receiving about 40,000 immigrants annually in recent years.

University of Utah research economist Pam Perlich said that Utah having a better economy than much of the country in recent years had been a magnet to such people as retirees seeking a lower cost of living or the unemployed who sought jobs. "As Utah caught up with the rest of the country, now they tend to stay put," she said.

New estimates say 28 of Utah's 29 counties increased their populations last year. (Tiny Daggett County was estimated to have lost five people, down to 964 residents from 969.)

And just four counties lost more people to migration than they gained from it — but one of them was Salt Lake County, the state's largest.

Estimates said it lost 2,616 people to out-migration. (But its overall population still increased by an estimated 11,615 people because of "natural" increases from births.) Other counties that lost through migration include: Beaver (38 people), Daggett (9) and Wayne (16).