Any way you measure them, Utah’s recent GDP numbers are astounding. GDP, or gross domestic product, is the standard measure of the value-added created through the production of goods and services in a region — country, state or city — during a given period.
Andrew DePietro, writing for Forbes magazine, recently published an analysis of the rankings of the states based on GDP growth using data from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA).
What DePietro found put Utah at the head of the pack.
In 2000, Utah’s annual real GDP (economic output adjusted for price changes) was $92.62 billion. In the first quarter of 2021, the annual rate reached $178.2 billion — the highest quarterly GDP in the state’s history. The U.S. Commerce Department calculates GDP on a quarterly basis and extrapolates it to an annual total.
“The Utah economy has been a powerhouse in recent decades, hence the reason why it takes the No. 1 spot,” said DePietro.
Over the past five years, Utah’s GDP grew by an excellent 19.1 percent, the second-highest growth rate for that period out of all 50 states. Going back to 2010, real GDP in Utah expanded by more than a third (36.6 percent), from approximately $123.47 billion in 2010, to an annual average of $168.62 billion in 2020 (with 2020 including the pandemic’s most severe impact). And the growth in Utah’s economy over the past 20 years is even more astounding: 82 percent, from an annual real GDP of $92.62 billion in 2000, to nearly $169 billion in 2020.
DePietro’s ranking had Washington finishing behind Utah at No. 2, followed by Idaho, Colorado and Arizona. Georgia and Florida were the only non-western states in the top 10.
Due to its recent strength in GDP growth, Utah also rode out the economic gut punch delivered by the COVID-19 pandemic better than any other state. The Utah GDP dropped a mere 0.1 percent from 2019 to 2020. By comparison, Hawaii’s GDP dropped 8 percent in the same period.