County sees changing population demographics

Like the rest of Wyoming, Crook County’s population has seen some changes over the past couple of years. Perhaps the most significant is that the state experienced the fastest population aging in the nation between 2022 and 2023.

During that timeframe, according to data from the state Economic Analysis Division, the total population of Wyoming only grew by 0.4% but the population aged 65 and over grew by 3.5%.

This saw the median age for Wyoming increase by 0.4 years to 39.7 years, which is slightly above the national median age of 39.1. Wyoming’s median age became the 20th highest and eclipsed all neighboring states except Montana.

“Though the impact from Baby Boomers (born between 1946 and 1964) aging was the main reason, outmigration of young people and decline in fertility rate also played roles,” said Dr. Wenlin Liu, Chief Economist.

Crook is among the counties with the highest percentage of the population aged over 65 at 23.1%, compared to a statewide percentage of 19.2%. The lowest was Albany County at 13.8%, while the highest was Hot Springs at 29.9%.

But while Wyoming has one of the largest proportion of Baby Boomers in America, it also has one of the lowest proportions of Generation X, which includes people between who are currently the ages of 44 and 59.

“The state is facing a labor shortage as the number of resident workers is insufficient to fill the positions vacated by retiring Baby Boomers under normal economic circumstances,” Liu said.

On the other hand, the Economic Analysis Division has pointed out that this environment provides great opportunity for the unemployed as Baby Boomers exit the workforce.

Since 2020, the population of Wyomingites who are not yet old enough to vote has decreased by 3.3%, with the largest drop occurring in the pre-school children group, which declined by 8.2%.

However, Crook County fared better in this respect, boasting the highest percentage of preschool children in the state at 6.5%. The statewide proportion for 2023 was 5.3%.

Another notable change in Crook is that this county saw the fastest increase in the state to its Hispanic population, which matched Niobrara County in growing by 9.5% in 2023. However, Crook remained the county with the smallest minority population at 6.1%.