Why Wyoming is so Weirdly Wealthy

strip mining and subdivision rights to 49 acres to the Jackson Hole Land Trust, you can retain ownership of the entire property, get a hefty tax deduction, and ensure your million-dollar view is protected in perpetuity. It's perfect: You can claim a charitable deduction of up to half your annual income for 15 years after your appraisal and reduce your estate and property taxes. Plus, it makes your home worth more in the long run; As demand and shortages inevitably increase, you won't have to worry about low-income housing being built on your property. It's supposedly altruistic, but it's virtually no inconvenience to you personally;

Although your land is conserved “for public benefit,” you are not required to maintain public access to it. It will remain your property, as well as your future heirs, and guarantees that your house is the only development that will be built on it. Conservation easements are a practice that has allowed the Jackson Hole Land Trust to hold more than 55,000 acres in trust, in a region where more than 97 percent of the land is federally protected. There is an extremely severe limit on where houses can be built here, which has driven property values ​​to new and seemingly impossible heights: a place where rich people can rest easy knowing they are the only ones who can afford to live. over there.  And yet, with Cowboy Cocktail's clandestine structure and Wyoming's lax tax policies, all of this wealth is sealed behind the golden borders of Teton County.

For those who live elsewhere in Wyoming, their proximity to massive wealth does not tangibly help them.   Nowhere else has seen the levels of gentrification and modernization that Jackson has experienced, and despite other natural wonders like Devils Tower and the Wind River Range, no other region receives as many visits. In fact, Wyoming's poverty rate is almost equal to the national average of 11 percent, although its average cost of living is comparatively lower. Teton County's wealth, then, is a stagnant force that largely circulates in and around Jackson Hole to satisfy the idiosyncratic whims of its residents. So what pays the bills, for the other Wyoming, is that physical resource economy: Wyoming sits atop some of the country's largest deposits of shale, oil and coal.

Together, these deep currents have created an incomparable treasure trove that still pays the bills.  Drilling and mining are successful here precisely because there are not many people. Oil and gas companies are essentially free to drill wherever they want; all that is required is to pay slightly higher taxes. Between property and value taxes, extraction now funds nearly half of the state budget. It's so valuable that when it comes to higher education, a sector that is often the first to be hit by state budget cuts, the University of Wyoming has a comparatively low tuition rate: on average, less than half that of its counterparts. in neighboring states.

But relying so heavily on taxing a single industry could be fatal, as any loss in compensation or property tax revenue will impact crucial services.   No matter how much carbon there is here, it is not infinite. Wyoming's coal production peaked in 2011 and its natural gas revenues have declined 74 percent in just over a decade. In 2020, Wyoming's governor even commented that small towns may have to be abandoned if the cost of maintaining them increases.  The unfortunate truth is that when the wells dry up and the coal beds are finally exposed, there won't be much left of Wyoming. The last functioning economy may very well be the Yellowstone metropolitan region, which includes Teton County.

This is because, beyond the ultra-rich part-time residents who park their money here, millions of ordinary people from around the world visit to see the region's enormous geysers and towering peaks, staying in communities of entry whose economies are boosted by their presence. In 2021, visitors to Yellowstone alone generated $834 million in economic benefits for the region. As in Jackson, vast pristine landscapes protected from development have become extremely valuable, but while tourist economies have their difficulties, these gateway communities are even more livable for the working class than Jackson.  But even as tourists visit and tax revenues increase, mining fades and vacations become a lifeline, Teton County's preexisting problems will worsen.

The rising cost of housing in and around Jackson Hole has driven up prices across the region, even in those comparatively cheaper gateway communities. For years, Yellowstone National Park has struggled to recruit employees to work in the park due to housing prices, and an anonymous donation of $40 million specifically for affordable housing offers some respite in the future. Many of those who have been locked out of housing anywhere in Jackson Hole now commute from cheaper communities in Idaho, across the treacherous Teton Pass, but the growing prevalence of million-dollar homes near Driggs and Victor threatens to push them further away.  So the current cycle will continue: Teton County will continue to exist, fueled by the exorbitant money the rich spend on their vacations, but the wealth divide will continue to deepen, driving out the thousands of low-paid workers who will never be able to afford call this place home. .

Wyoming may be one of the richest states in the country, if measured in a very particular way, but it is at the same time one in which a given working-class individual has perhaps one of the least chances of accumulating wealth on his or her own. . Wealth in Wyoming is not cultivated, spread, or shared: rather, it simply exists. In winter, Wyoming essentially has two key industries: skiing and coal mining. Both are quite fascinating, with enormous operational complexity, so we made two videos on the logistics of each. Both are part of our Nebula Original series, Logistics of X, where we cover how the modern world works, much like what we do here on YouTube, but in greater depth and on more topics.

Nebula, of course, is the creator-owned and managed streaming platform we designed to be the best home for the things we do. For example, we decided early on that it had to be subscription-based, which may seem unintuitive. But ad-supported video platforms are flawed: The creators they use are incentivized to chase clicks at all costs, and there's only so much investment in production quality that makes financial sense. But with a subscription-friendly platform, we make money by offering a service good enough that you decide to stay and continue paying for the subscription.   That incentivizes quality, but also, more importantly, provides us with the funding so we can make bigger changes with the ambitious Nebula Originals.

A few months ago we filmed our biggest budget show to date, called Getaway, and while we haven't shared many details yet, the trailer will be out soon, which will explain the show's rather ambitious premise. And of course, there are many more creators than just us at Nebula – we've curated an incredible selection of a couple hundred thoughtful creators who create meaningful and entertaining content, and we're always releasing more and more original and exclusive shows and movies. And best of all: Nebula helps creators. It provides us with an additional, stable and predictable source of income, so when you sign up at Nebula.tv/Wendover, you help us continue making these videos even here on YouTube and make them even better.   By signing up at that link, you'll also get 40% off an annual plan, bringing the cost down to just $2.50 a month, a great price to be able to watch all of our regular content ad-free, all original content. and help support us, so thanks in advance if you end up giving Nebula a chance.