A healthy national economy is a boon for the gaming industry and for tourism in Las Vegas, with free-spending visitors fueling about 30% of the local economy. So far, visitor volume is 2% above last year. Housing markets in Las Vegas and Reno are healthy, partly because the state’s desert climate and low taxation rates make it an attractive destination for retirees, including many fleeing nearby high-tax states like California. A surge in home building is beginning to ease the supply crunch a little, and double-digit housing price growth for over a year has slipped back into the single digits again.

Utah’s economy is humming, consistently one of the best-performing in the country with expansion continuing in every major sector from healthcare to basic manufacturing. Hiring will expand by 3.0% this year, down slightly from last year’s sizzling 3.2% growth. Slower workforce growth may be a helpful development with unemployment at a low 2.8% rate that underlines the scarcity of workers to fill jobs. Utah has a large presence in a number of rapidly growing high-tech sectors including cloud computing and software development as well as in aerospace and life sciences. Its relatively cheaper real estate, growing talent pool and proximity to other higher-cost Western tech centers is fostering growth of a “Silicon Slopes” cloud computing and “Bionic Valley” bioengineering center around Salt Lake City. As many as one in every seven jobs in the state –-300,000 in all-– are generated by high-tech companies that typically pay more than other industries.   A variety of other businesses are drawn to Utah, too, including Amazon which has just put a new warehousing facility employing 1,500 employees and thousands of robots to work around the clock. Hiring is brisk in its tourism sector, while construction trades are booming with projects including a new $3.6 billion international airport at Salt Lake City. The airport is slated for completion in September 2020 and will offer visitors a gateway to Utah’s ski resorts and national parks. Hemmed in by the lake and the mountains, Salt Lake City’s growth has slowed to about 2%. But growth is still strong along the valley to the north (Ogden, 3.8%) and to the south (Provo-Orem, 3.5%). And Utah boasts, in St. George along the southern border, the fastest-growing metro (4.5%) in the entire country.