Report: Utah will be much more diverse in 2065

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — Utah will be significantly more diverse in 2065, according to projections in a new state report released Wednesday.

Figures from the University of Utah’s Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute show that slightly more than 1 in 3 Utah residents will be racial and ethnic minorities, up from 1 in 5 in 2015, the Deseret News reported.

Minority groups, and mostly Hispanic Utah residents, will fuel about half the growth over the half-century, the report says.

The projections create the most detailed forecast to date of Utah’s changing face over the long term, said Pamela Perlich, the Gardner Institute’s director of demographic research.

They also illustrate an irreversible trend, she said.

The nation as a whole will still remain more diverse than Utah, growing to about 56 percent minorities by 2060, up from a little more than one-third in 2010, according to figures from the U.S. Census Bureau.

Utah’s current population of 3.1 million will almost double, adding a new 2.8 million people by 2065, the Gardner Institute report said.

Following the 2020 census count, Perlich and her team of demographers plan to pinpoint the diversity in greater detail, down to the county level. The projections draw on previous census data and existing population estimates from Perlich’s team.
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Information from: Deseret News, http://www.deseretnews.com