Source:
NY TimesBy KIRK JOHNSON
SALT LAKE CITY — In the economic boom that thundered through Utah over the last few years, many people saw a kind of perfect chemistry at work.
What demographers call Utah’s special story — its population is the youngest in the nation by far and one of the fastest growing, mainly from large Mormon families — was paying off, melding with a surging engine of growth in Utah’s backyard and throughout the world.
Between November 2006 and November 2007, Utah created more jobs than Pennsylvania, a state five times the population. Construction spiked at the same time as a giant wave of 20-somethings — another wrinkle unique to Utah, a baby boom echo long after the rest of the country’s — entered the worlds of work, housing and family.
Ramin Rahimian for The New York Times
Ari Bishop sells training packages to people learning to work a new growth sector: foreclosures and bank-owned properties.
But economists, employers and residents now say the very forces that made Utah roar — in the types of jobs that grew, especially construction and manufacturing — also pulled the state more firmly into the national and global economic web. And some of the distinctive traits that looked like strengths, like the low numbers of retirees, now seem like chinks in the armor. Retirees, who have flocked to places like Montana and Idaho, are likely to have interest and investment income to spend no matter what happens, while wage earners, who dominate Utah’s economy, could suffer in a downturn.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/24/us/24utah.html?ex=1204434000&en=7528eebe937d765c&ei=5043&partner=EXCITE