Robert Spendlove, senior economist at Zions Bank, briefs an audience about his 2026 economic outlook at a recent gathering in Salt Lake City. (Brice Wallace/Salt Lake Business Journal)
Economic outlook season is underway, and Robert Spendlove has thrown out the first pitch.
At a recent outlook briefing in Salt Lake City, Zions Bank’s senior economist listed several challenges in the national economy: uncertainty and risk caused by tariffs and the recent government shutdown, low consumer sentiment, slowing labor market growth, and the threat that increased tariffs could reaccelerate inflation.
“But with all that, the Intermountain Region remains really strong,” he assured the crowd. “Our economic fundamentals are strong. Our population and demographics are strong. So, it is a good time. Even though we’ve got that risk and that uncertainty, it’s a good time to be in Utah.”
Businesspeople are generally “grumpy” about tariffs because of the uncertainty they create. The average effective tariff rate was 3 percent a year ago but now it’s at 17 percent. However, they have yet to cause expected inflation. Most businesspeople can adjust to tariff impacts, but only if they know at what rates they will be, he said.
“It’s been going up and down and sideways. … We just see them going up and down, almost willy-nilly, for the past year,” Spendlove said. “And if you’re a businessperson, your response might just be ‘I’m just going to pull back,’ and I’ve heard that from a lot of businesspeople.”
But Utah’s economic fundamentals remain strong:
• Utah’s population growth is nearly 2 percent, compared to 1 percent nationally.
• Utah’s employment growth is 1.7 percent, above the national figure of 1 percent.
• Utah’s unemployment rate, like the nation’s, has been trending up, but Utah’s — at about 3.5 percent the past year — “actually has kind of stalled out,” he said. “I mean, it’s good, right? We want the unemployment rate to stall out. We don’t want it to continue to move up.”
Spendlove expects the rate to “kind of stick around there” at about 3.5 percent and keep Utah in “that sweet spot.” “We’re not the lowest in the country, like in the Upper Midwest, but we’re also not the highest, like in California and Nevada and Washington, D.C.,” he said.
• Utah’s new unemployment insurance claims are about 2,000. “We would have to cross 4,000 for me to get nervous about those weekly unemployment insurance claims. … We’re about half of that now and it’s something that we’ll be watching, but I don’t see any signs of distress right now.”
For contrast, during the COVID pandemic, the figure grew from 2,000 to over 20,000 in one week.
• After seeing a huge surge in housing prices from 2020 to 2022, the growth now is between 1 percent and 2 percent — “actually what I would argue is a really good level,” he said. “You don’t want to see a big contraction. You also don’t want to see a big escalation in those home prices again.”
• Utah’s wage growth is higher than the national average.
• Median household income in Utah is “great,” at more than $100,000, thanks to demographics and the state’s strong economy.
Meanwhile, Moody’s indicates that Utah is not among states facing a recession risk. “Utah is doing well,” Spendlove said. “We’re still expanding, Idaho is still expanding, Arizona is still expanding. But we are surrounded by weakness. We are surrounded by states that are already struggling, are already treading water or are already in recession.”
Nathan Callister, the new president and CEO of Zions Bank, said annual economic outlooks usually feature an assessment that the new year will be “the most unique year.”
“And I’m not saying this is the most unique year, but it is an incredibly unique market environment that we’re in,” he said. “I think there’s a lot of stuff above the surface that we see. I think there’s a lot below the surface as well that are creating challenges and will continue to create challenges. And we are navigating, I think, the convergence of so many moving parts.”
Trouble areas include geopolitics, tariffs, the AI boom, asset prices in the stock market, the proliferation of the private markets (including private credit), consumer sentiment, the “K”-shaped economy, a convergence of wealth, affordability, deficits and the national debt, among others, he said.
“Despite all of this, our economy has been incredibly resilient, and Utah has been incredibly resilient, but I think we’re feeling, even here, some of those challenges,” Callister said.
Calling for Utahns to become more agile and more connected than ever before, Callister said geopolitics heads his overall list of worries.
“I feel like we’re seeing a tectonic shift in the world order, from turf battles to trade wars, to the Monroe Doctrine that’s going on now, to all these changes going on to our supply chain,” he said. “I think we’ll continue to see some major implications to what’s going on in this changing world order that’s way different from what we’ve experienced since World War II.”