Five years after the Covid-19 pandemic threw Montana into an unprecedented growth spurt, the state has begun to recalibrate.

The rate of population growth has chilled since the 2021 in-migration peak and was actually below the national average last year. Economic sectors that boomed — remote workers and real estate — have finally settled into a more muted state. 

That’s according to the 2025 outlook just released by the Bureau of Business and Economic Research which predicts continued slow economic growth this year and beyond. 

While a return to more sustainable growth is welcome, there’s no denying that challenges remain in the wake of Montana’s breakneck expansion since 2020. 

Notably, the state is still facing a major affordability crisis. Even as Montana’s job growth ranked among the top five nationally last year, it skewed toward lower-paying service jobs where wages haven’t kept up with the cost of living. In fact, after outpacing the national average for three consecutive years, Montana’s personal income growth rate fell to about 1% last year. 

“Montana continues to be ranked at the bottom for affordability,” bureau economist Derek Sheehan wrote in the report, which is explained by the fact that Montana is also in the bottom tier for household income. 

Of utmost concern, the National Association of Realtors ranked Montana as the least affordable state based on home listings compared to local incomes. 

“There’s no doubt that Montana has a housing cost challenge,” bureau director Jeff Michael reiterated at a presentation in Kalispell last week.   

Michael’s talk offered a stark reminder that much work lies ahead to stabilize the housing disparity crisis, even with recent strides to bring new multi-family units to market. 

Whitefish’s Sen. Dave Fern is taking on the challenge with some out-of-the-box ideas, including one bill that would require municipal zoning regulations to treat manufactured and factory-built housing the same as other types of residential property. He’s also working on a bill that would allow resort communities like Columbia Falls and Whitefish to levy an additional 1% resort tax to fund workforce housing initiatives.  

Columbia Falls’ Rep. Debo Powers has a bill to roll back the state’s ban on inclusionary zoning, which requires developers to build a percentage of affordable units in certain zones. Whitefish and Bozeman had inclusionary zoning laws in place prior to the 2021 law. Proponents of the ban said it was needed to spur housing construction amid the pandemic population boom and labor shortage. But with that era in the rearview, it’s worth reassessing if the law had the expected impact and is still needed today. 

Fern and Power’s proposals are among 114 housing-related bills in front of the Legislature this session. It’s good to see the issue remains top of mind for some of the valley’s legislators.

Affordability aside, the bureau’s report highlighted Flathead County’s resilience amid the state’s overall slowdown. 

“Most of the economic drivers for the valley were running strongly last year,” bureau research director Patrick Barkey wrote in the 2025 report. “Tech growth was unabated, specialized manufacturing had a good year, and even health care put its recent stumbles behind it and had a strong year.” 

The only soft areas were in construction and wood products, which were affected by stubborn interest rates. 

In short, the valley’s diverse business makeup proved key as the state settles into a new, more mellow, normal.