Wyoming
Wyoming Is Growing… Older, Not Faster
Wyoming is still gaining residents, but the real story isn’t how many people are moving in — it’s how quickly the state’s population is aging. Births are barely keeping up with deaths, and with fewer young people to replace them, Wyoming is entering a new era where older residents are quietly reshaping the economy, communities, and the future of the state itself.
According to the latest U.S. Census estimates, Wyoming’s population reached about 588,753 in July 2025, an increase of just over 2,000 people from a year earlier. That works out to about 0.3 percent growth — still upward, but slow. And most of that growth is coming from people moving here, not babies being born. Natural growth — the difference between births and deaths — added fewer than 300 people during the year. That reflects years of lower birth rates and a growing number of older residents.
Wyoming’s aging trend is among the fastest in the country.
The number of residents age 65 and older grew at a faster rate than the overall population, making the state’s median age rise more quickly than the national average. Analysts say this is driven by the large baby boomer cohort moving into retirement and by younger generations leaving the state.
Wenlin Liu, chief economist with the state’s Economic Analysis Division, bluntly described the demographic shift: the state’s older population is growing fast, while outmigration of young people and lower birth rates continue to shrink the pool of working-age Wyomingites. That’s already contributing to labor shortages in key sectors.
The trend is real and concerning.
Josh Dorrell, CEO of the Wyoming Business Council, has warned lawmakers that Wyoming faces a “chicken‑and‑egg” problem: there aren’t enough jobs to keep young people here, and without more young people it’s harder to build the kinds of economies that create jobs in the first place. “We don’t have enough people to attract the jobs and we don’t have enough jobs to attract the people,” Dorrell told a legislative committee last summer.
Surveys of Wyoming residents mirror that concern. A recent poll presented to county officials found that most voters want stronger action to grow local economies and create opportunities to keep young people from leaving. Dorrell noted that two out of every three Wyoming‑born adults move away by their mid‑20s, often because they can’t find the jobs they want close to home.
The demographic shift carries consequences beyond just census numbers. An aging population has different needs — more health care services, more senior‑friendly housing, more support systems — while the shrinking share of younger adults can shrink the labor force available for schools, hospitals, factories and small businesses.
Despite the state’s strong job market — with unemployment remaining low — leaders worry about what happens next when more boomers retire and fewer young workers are around to replace them.
Wyoming’s growth story may still be positive on the surface, but the deeper reality is that the Cowboy State is aging faster than it’s growing younger. That shift is already changing communities from Cheyenne to Sheridan, and may have long‑lasting effects on the state’s economy, schools, and way of life in the years ahead.
Big Horn Polo Club Pegasus Cup
The Big Horn Polo club was established in 1898. Today’s match (August 17, 2025) was the Pegasus Polo Cup in the foothills of the Big Horn Mountains. Spectators are encouraged to come to Sunday polo for an afternoon of tailgating! The admission is free! There are bleachers and an announcer for each Sunday game. Concessions are availble for food and drinks.
Gallery Credit: Kolby Fedore, Townsquare Media
Casper College Student Move In Day
Gallery Credit: Kolby Fedore, Townsquare Media
Central Wyoming Rodeo-Wednesday
Central Wyoming Rodeo-Wednesday
Gallery Credit: Libby Ngo
Carl McDaniel, 65, from Washington state suffered broken bones after he was charged by a 2,000lb (900kg) bull during a visit to Yellowstone with his grandson on Friday. The encounter was recorded by Mike MacLeod, a professional photographer, who said the animal was ‘agitated, pissed off and charging anything and everything’
Wyoming
Wyoming authorities call on Rocky Mountain Power to explain role in massive November power outage
by Dustin Bleizeffer, WyoFile
The massive, multiple-utility power outage last fall that left some 250,000 customers across parts of Wyoming, South Dakota and Montana without electricity was the result of miscommunication and inadequate procedures during planned maintenance that required de-energizing a power line in southcentral Wyoming, according to a report.
The Nov. 13 incident left thousands of homes and businesses without power for 9.5 hours — longer, in some cases — and knocked out a coal-powered generator outside Glenrock. The unit at the Dave Johnston Power Plant remains offline, leaving Rocky Mountain Power to backfill some 300 megawatts of electricity — enough to power about 225,000 homes.
Without expressly assigning blame to any one party, the report — conducted by the Western Electricity Coordinating Council and the North American Electric Reliability Corporation — indicates a series of communication breakdowns between PacifiCorp (parent company of Rocky Mountain Power), the Western Area Power Administration and, to some degree, electrical grid coordinating teams.
While it’s unclear whether authorities such as the North American Electric Reliability Corporation might pinpoint fault and assess penalties, the Wyoming Public Service Commission has called on Rocky Mountain Power to appear at a hearing scheduled for 2:30 p.m. Wednesday. The commission wants to hear from the utility about “the specifics and details of the event and report,” a public notice announced, and it “may consider and take any action that is in the public interest.”
The hearing at the Public Service Commission’s office located at 2515 Warren Avenue, Suite 300, in Cheyenne, will also be livestreamed at this link.
What happened
According to the 49-page report published in June, PacifiCorp and the Western Area Power Administration were coordinating maintenance on their respective systems that, together, required temporarily de-energizing PacifiCorp’s Aeolus–Clover 500 kilovolt line, which runs east-west and is anchored, in part, by a substation near Medicine Bow.
The effort also required curtailing some local wind energy from feeding the grid, according to the report. But on the day of the planned maintenance, Nov. 13, there was confusion about whether the Western Area Power Administration would scrap its work, so wind energy wasn’t curtailed as originally planned.
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Wind turbines near Cheyenne poke into a colorful sunrise in January 2025. (Tennessee Watson/WyoFile)
The report indicates that modeling tools might have failed to accurately measure local grid conditions, so when the power line was de-energized, “power flow rapidly redistributed throughout the northeast portion” of the local grid. “Within six seconds,” according to the report, “an electrical island formed and collapsed, causing widespread effects across that portion of the interconnection.
“The disturbance,” the report continues, “culminated in the loss of more than 4,800 [megawatts] of generation from coal, natural gas, photovoltaic and wind resources.”
The cascading power failure began at about 12:45 p.m. on a Thursday, dragging down portions of service territories operated by Rocky Mountain Power, Black Hills Energy, Montana-Dakota Utilities and some rural electric co-ops.
The report points to failures in communication, process deficiencies and inadequate modeling tools. Wind energy was not “identified as a contributing factor,” according to the report. It credits both battery storage and wind energy throughout the impacted area for supporting “a faster frequency recovery across the interconnection” and for providing “readily available capacity during system restoration.”
This article was originally published by WyoFile and is republished here with permission. WyoFile is an independent nonprofit news organization focused on Wyoming people, places and policy.
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