In 2023, the population of the Salt Lake City metropolitan area in the United States was about 1.27 million people. This represented a slight increase when compared to the previous year.

Graph and download economic data for Employed Persons in Salt Lake City, UT (MSA) (LAUMT494162000000005) from Jan 1990 to Apr 2025 about Salt Lake City, UT, household survey, employment, persons, and USA.

Graph and download economic data for Unemployment Rate in Salt Lake City, UT (MSA) (LAUMT494162000000003A) from 1990 to 2024 about Salt Lake City, UT, household survey, unemployment, rate, and USA.

Historical dataset of population level and growth rate for the Salt Lake City metro area from 1950 to 2025.

Graph and download economic data for Unemployed Persons in Salt Lake City, UT (MSA) (LAUMT494162000000004A) from 1990 to 2024 about Salt Lake City, UT, household survey, unemployment, persons, and USA.

Graph and download economic data for Civilian Labor Force in Salt Lake City, UT (MSA) (LAUMT494162000000006A) from 1990 to 2024 about Salt Lake City, UT, civilian, labor force, labor, household survey, and USA.

Disclaimer: These data are updated by the author and are not an official product of the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland.This project provides two sets of migration estimates for the major US metro areas. The first series measures net migration of people to and from the urban neighborhoods of the metro areas. The second series covers all neighborhoods but breaks down net migration to other regions by four region types: (1) high-cost metros, (2) affordable, large metros, (3) midsized metros, and (4) small metros and rural areas. These series were introduced in a Cleveland Fed District Data Brief entitled “Urban and Regional Migration Estimates: Will Your City Recover from the Pandemic?"The migration estimates in this project are created with data from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York/Equifax Consumer Credit Panel (CCP). The CCP is a 5 percent random sample of the credit histories maintained by Equifax. The CCP reports the census block of residence for over 10 million individuals each quarter. Each month, Equifax receives individuals’ addresses, along with reports of debt balances and payments, from creditors (mortgage lenders, credit card issuers, student loan servicers, etc.). An algorithm maintained by Equifax considers all of the addresses reported for an individual and identifies the individual’s most likely current address. Equifax anonymizes the data before they are added to the CCP, removing names, addresses, and Social Security numbers (SSNs). In lieu of mailing addresses, the census block of the address is added to the CCP. Equifax creates a unique, anonymous identifier to enable researchers to build individuals’ panels. The panel nature of the data allows us to observe when someone has migrated and is living in a census block different from the one they lived in at the end of the preceding quarter. For more details about the CCP and its use in measuring migration, see Lee and Van der Klaauw (2010) and DeWaard, Johnson and Whitaker (2019). DefinitionsMetropolitan areaThe metropolitan areas in these data are combined statistical areas. This is the most aggregate definition of metro areas, and it combines Washington DC with Baltimore, San Jose with San Francisco, Akron with Cleveland, etc. Metro areas are combinations of counties that are tightly linked by worker commutes and other economic activity. All counties outside of metropolitan areas are tracked as parts of a rural commuting zone (CZ). CZs are also groups of counties linked by commuting, but CZ definitions cover all counties, both metropolitan and non-metropolitan. High-cost metropolitan areasHigh-cost metro areas are those where the median list price for a house was more than $200 per square foot on average between April 2017 and April 2022. These areas include San Francisco-San Jose, New York, San Diego, Los Angeles, Seattle, Boston, Miami, Sacramento, Denver, Salt Lake City, Portland, and Washington-Baltimore. Other Types of RegionsMetro areas with populations above 2 million and house price averages below $200 per square foot are categorized as affordable, large metros. Metro areas with populations between 500,000 and 2 million are categorized as mid-sized metros, regardless of house prices. All remaining counties are in the small metro and rural category.To obtain a metro area's total net migration, sum the four net migration values for the the four types of regions.Urban neighborhoodCensus tracts are designated as urban if they have a population density above 7,000 people per square mile. High density neighborhoods can support walkable retail districts and high-frequency public transportation. They are more likely to have the “street life” that people associate with living in an urban rather than a suburban area. The threshold of 7,000 people per square mile was selected because it was the average density in the largest US cities in the 1930 census. Before World War II, workplaces, shopping, schools and parks had to be accessible on foot. Tracts are also designated as urban if more than half of their housing units were built before WWII and they have a population density above 2,000 people per square mile. The lower population density threshold for the pre-war neighborhoods recognizes that many urban tracts have lost population since the 1960s. While the street grids usually remain, the area also needs su

There are three components of change: births, deaths, and migration. The change in the population from births and deaths is often combined and referred to as natural increase or natural change. Populations grow or shrink depending on if they gain people faster than they lose them. Looking at an area’s unique combination of natural change and migration helps us understand why its population is changing, and how quickly the change is occurring.Natural IncreaseNatural change is the difference between births and deaths in a population. Often times, natural change is positive, which means that more babies are being born than people are dying. This positive natural change is referred to as natural increase. Examples of natural increase exist across the United States, one being the Salt Lake City metro area in Utah. Between 2014 and 2015, Salt Lake City had around 19,100 births and 6,400 deaths. Since there were about 12,700 more births than deaths, Salt Lake City had a natural increase of about 12,700 people, making natural increase a key reason why its population grew over the year.The opposite of natural increase is called natural decrease, where more people are dying than babies being born, which can cause a population to shrink. Areas with aging populations often have natural decrease. Two states had natural decrease between 2014 and 2015, Maine and West Virginia. Between 2014 and 2015, Maine had 450 more deaths than births and West Virginia had 940 more deaths than births. In both cases, natural decrease was one of the reasons why their populations shrank between 2014 and 2015 in our latest estimates.MigrationMigration is the movement of people from one area to another. It is often expressed as net migration, which is the difference between how many people move into and out of an area. When net migration is positive, a population has more people moving in than out. We split migration into domestic migration and international migration.Domestic migration refers to people moving between areas within the United States, and is often one of the largest contributors to population change. Regionally, the South gains the most net domestic migrants, with roughly 440,000 more people moving into southern states than leaving them between 2014 and 2015. Sometimes net domestic migration is negative, in which case more people are moving away than are moving in. The Chicago metro area in Illinois, Indiana, and Wisconsin lost about 80,000 people through migration between 2014 and 2015, which is consistent with a long-standing pattern of negative net domestic migration for the metro area.International migration refers to people moving into and out of the United States, and consists of a diverse group of people such as foreign-born immigrants from many countries around the world, members of the U.S. Armed Forces, and U.S. citizens working abroad. Some areas, like the Miami metro area in Florida, grow (in part) due to net international migration. Miami gained about 70,000 net international migrants between 2014 and 2015, making net international migration a major factor in Miami’s population growth.

In 2023, the metropolitan area of New York-Newark-Jersey City had the biggest population in the United States. Based on annual estimates from the census, the metropolitan area had around 19.5 million inhabitants, which was a slight decrease from the previous year. The Los Angeles and Chicago metro areas rounded out the top three. What is a metropolitan statistical area? In general, a metropolitan statistical area (MSA) is a core urbanized area with a population of at least 50,000 inhabitants – the smallest MSA is Carson City, with an estimated population of nearly 56,000. The urban area is made bigger by adjacent communities that are socially and economically linked to the center. MSAs are particularly helpful in tracking demographic change over time in large communities and allow officials to see where the largest pockets of inhabitants are in the country. How many MSAs are in the United States? There were 421 metropolitan statistical areas across the U.S. as of July 2021. The largest city in each MSA is designated the principal city and will be the first name in the title. An additional two cities can be added to the title, and these will be listed in population order based on the most recent census. So, in the example of New York-Newark-Jersey City, New York has the highest population, while Jersey City has the lowest. The U.S. Census Bureau conducts an official population count every ten years, and the new count is expected to be announced by the end of 2030.