Utah/Statistical claims/LDS population in Utah

Criticism

"Within the state of Utah, the number of Mormons has steadily declined over the past 10 years."

Source(s) of the criticism

• Search for the Truth DVD pre-distribution letter. FAIRWiki link

Response

The producers of the DVD video Search for the Truth claim that the number of Latter-day Saints in Utah has fallen, which means, according to them, "within Utah, we are doing a fairly good job of combating Mormonism" and "the Mormon Church is vulnerable."

But the video is simply incorrect, according to figures from the U.S. Census and the LDS Church Almanac.

	Utah: Total	Utah: LDS	Utah: Non-LDS
31-Dec-1990	1,722,850	1,236,242	486,608
31-Dec-2005	2,469,585	1,752,467	717,118
15-year growth	43.34%	41.76%	47.37%
annualized growth	2.89%	2.78%	3.16%

As the table shows, the LDS population in Utah is growing—it is just growing at a slower rate than the non-LDS population. The reasons for this are unknown, but may have to do with high non-LDS immigration into Utah during this period.

The Salt Lake Tribute wrote:

"Utah's ongoing religious diversification has little to do with the LDS Church or its teachings, but rather is a reflection of the economy.... When economic growth goes up, minority population goes up, and this is kind of a code word for non-Mormons.... While continuing to grow in actual members, the LDS share of the state population showed a slow but constant decline every year from 1989 to 2004."^[1]

Data Sources

• LDS Almanac, 2005
• http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/49000.html
• http://www.adherents.com/largecom/com_lds.html
• http://www.ams.usda.gov/statesummaries/UT/MSA/MSA.pdf/Utah.pdf

Endnotes

1. [note]  Matt Canham, "Mormon portion of Utah population steadily shrinking," Salt Lake Tribune (22 June 2006).(off-site (accessed 20 March 2007)