Utah may have the healthiest (non-oil boom) economy in the nation

While I've mentioned Utah's low unemployment on the blog before, I recently found that Utah recently has had some of the highest wage growth of any state in the US as well. This is highlighted in this chart (from here):

Since North Dakota is experiencing an old fashion oil boom, it appears that Utah, at 3.6% wage growth last year, is effectively doing the best at raising incomes for any state with a normal economy. This is somewhat expected in a tight labor market (employees have more bargaining power), but great to confirm nonetheless. Recall that unemployment across Utah's major metropolitan areas is some of the lowest in the US:

Note that Logan (3.3), SLC (4.0), Provo (4.0), and Ogden (4.4%) have lower unemployment than almost any other metropolitan area as of January 2014. For all the flak I give local policy-makers, they do deserve some credit this. Great job!