Wyoming saw population influx from Colorado during pandemic, data shows

CHEYENNE — Data from the early pandemic years shows that more people migrated into Wyoming than left the state, and most came to the Equality State from Colorado.

An influx of people from the Front Range means potential new businesses and additional workforce, but also puts a strain on the Capital City’s already stretched-thin housing market, experts say.

“I would say that this is a wonderful, terrible thing. As we look for economic growth and business growth, Colorado is a good market for us,” said Dale Steenbergen, president and CEO of the Greater Cheyenne Chamber of Commerce.

“People moving from Colorado to live here, they have established businesses here. We have a certain amount of folks that migrate with the military, and we know that that is one draw, as well.”

Officials know that an influx of new residents puts continued pressure on Cheyenne’s housing market, he said.

“But we can’t take the position that we can’t grow anymore, or that we are going to shut the gates,” Steenbergen said.

Between 2019 and 2020, Wyoming had the most population exchange with Colorado, according to data released this week by the state’s Economic Analysis Division. The gross in-migration to Wyoming from Colorado totaled 4456 people, which covered 17.3% of the total in-migrants. Gross out-migration, or outflow, to Colorado was 3223 people, comprising 13.3% of Wyoming’s total out-migrants.

IRS numbers show that the state experienced a positive net migration of roughly 1400 people between 2019 and 2020. After several consecutive years of more people leaving than moving into the state from 2014 and 2019, the direction of net migration reversed in 2020.

“Employment opportunities have always been the driving factor for Wyoming’s migration trend, but the pandemic played a significant role in 2020,” said Wenlin Liu, chief economist for the state’s Economic Analysis Division.

California, Texas, Arizona and Washington, as well as Wyoming’s other neighboring states, showed sizable population exchange with Wyoming. Sixty percent of Wyoming’s migration flows come from 10 Western states, according to Liu.

Cheyenne Mayor Patrick Collins said that it is true people are coming from Colorado to Cheyenne for both personal and business reasons. At a recent groundbreaking for Eagle Claw Fishing Tackle Co., which will build its 115,000-square-foot manufacturing plant in east Cheyenne, Collins said he heard as much from the Colorado owners.

“That is a [fourth] generation, family-owned Colorado company that shared with us that it was time for them to go. They told me that their company hadn’t changed, but their state had,” Collins said.

The plant is expected to be completed in February 2024 and may bring as many as 200 jobs to Cheyenne once it’s fully operational.

“We are seeing successes with the out-migration of manufacturing and jobs from Colorado to Wyoming, and specifically to Cheyenne,” Collins said. “I credit [Cheyenne] LEADS a lot for what is going on there. That has been a real boon for us.”

But with the growth come challenges, he said. The city has often discussed its housing shortage in recent meetings, whether focusing on fire codes for multiplex housing units or new development like the proposed units at Ridge Road and Holland Court.

“These new families, some will be local, but some people will move to Wyoming from Colorado. With our housing situation, that is a problem,” Collins said. “But I think it is a good problem to have. It puts pressure on us to create more housing units, but I would much rather that than have hundreds or thousands of units sitting empty, wondering if we can sell them.”

“I would say that this is a wonderful, terrible thing. As we look for economic growth and business growth, Colorado is a good market for us. People moving from Colorado to live here, they have established businesses here. We have a certain amount of folks that migrate with the military, and we know that that is one draw, as well.”

The most recent data from Cheyenne LEADS, although from pre-pandemic years, showed that Cheyenne was a “net importer of talent,” according to Betsey Hale, CEO of Cheyenne LEADS. 

Approximately 80% of workers in Cheyenne lived in the city at the time of data collection, and the remaining 20% commuted into Cheyenne from other jurisdictions, like Laramie and the “northern edges of Fort Collins, Colo.”

 LEADS may update its data to reflect pandemic changes, but Hale said she didn’t have a timeline for when that may happen.

According to Liu, many people chose to relocate to less-populated, lower-cost areas during the pandemic, and the increased availability of remote work made this possible.

“The first year of COVID19 appeared to have prompted a number of professionals with higher earnings and ‘work at home’ opportunities to relocate to Wyoming,” Liu said.

All the data suggests that Cheyenne is a “growing community, and I think this is a positive thing,” Collins said. 

He added that an influx of new people, and new businesses, could help diversify Wyoming’s economy, shielding the state — and city — from the swings that come with boom-and-bust industries.

“I would love to see us build a diversified economy in Laramie County where we could be insulated from that, so when the state struggles with its extraction industry, the rest of our industries that we were able to create here — the data centers, the manufacturing, the retail, the transportation businesses — that we are able to insulate from that,” he said. “[That would] create a revenue stream that will be consistent and predictable, so we can budget and move forward.”