Opportunities & Challenges

Opportunity Statement

Utah’s economy faces enormous opportunity as a youthful, mid-sized state with a diverse economy, well-trained workforce, world-class infrastructure, large middle class, nation-leading social capital, and superb life quality with access to exceptional recreational amenities. Utah’s status as the international choice for the 2034 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games provides a natural deadline to rally around these opportunities.

The Utah economy faces five significant economic opportunities:

  • AI-age – Utah’s tech-smart and entrepreneurial workforce is poised to compete to win in the age of artificial intelligence.
  • Energy decade – Utah’s diverse energy portfolio, coupled with its affordability, reliability, and dispatchability, sets the state apart from other states during a decade of significant energy demand. Utah’s oil, natural gas, coal, geothermal, wind, solar, biomass, hydro-electric, hydrogen, storage capacity, critical minerals, and potential modern nuclear form the basis for an energy decade like never before that will produce statewide benefits, particularly in rural Utah.
  • Sports, entertainment, culture, and convention district – Utah’s urban center will be transformed over the next decade by over $3 billion of private investment and $1 billion of public investment. A new sports, entertainment, culture, and convention district will enliven downtown, including the state’s new NHL hockey team (Utah Hockey Club) and the possibility of an MLB team over the planning horizon. Investments by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Temple Square and adjacent properties will further elevate the urban core.
  • Generational real estate investments – Over the next decade, major real estate investments will transform Utah. They include The Point (600 acres of state-owned land at the intersection of Utah’s two largest counties); Inland Port (a shipping and trade center located in the northwest quadrant of Salt Lake City); Utah City (an 800-acre project on the shores of Utah Lake) and Falcon Hill (expansion of the Falcon Hill Aerospace Research Park and related growth at Northrop Grumman and other aerospace/defense firms in Northern Utah).
  • 2034 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games – Utah will host its second Olympic Winter Games in 2034, providing an estimated $6.6 billion economic impact and, even more, significant motivation and backpressure to improve all aspects of the state before hosting the world.

Problem statement

Utah’s economy functions in an uncertain national and international economic context of relatively high inflation, an unacceptably high national debt, federal government dysfunction, social unease, geopolitical strife, and AI-led technological change that creates opportunities but also risks.

The Utah economy faces five significant economic opportunities:

  • Education-jobs connection – A misalignment exists between the skills of Utah’s current workforce, post-secondary training, and the needs of a knowledge economy.
  • Housing affordability – Utah’s unaffordable housing market prices out many first-time homebuyers and creates prohibitive cost burdens on renters. The high cost of housing threatens wealth creation for Utahns.
  • Growth pressures – Utah’s population growth creates serious pressure on energy availability and the natural environment and, in many cases, detracts from life quality, including crowding, congestion, air quality, and other concerns.
  • Mental health – Utah faces growing mental health concerns and increasing social isolation challenges among our youth and young adults.
  • Distressed Utahns – Too many Utahns struggle to support themselves and their families and suffer from intergenerational poverty, unsatisfactory living conditions, and homelessness.