The Numbers Are Brutal

Wyoming recorded 13.9 workplace deaths per 100,000 workers in 2024, according to U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data analyzed by Visual Capitalist's Dorothy Neufeld. The national average is 3.3. Rhode Island, the safest state, sits at 1.1.

2023 was the worst year on record in over a decade — 45 workers killed on the job, a 32.4% jump over the prior year and Wyoming's deadliest since 2007, according to Wyoming's own annual fatality report cited by WyoFile.

This Isn't a New Problem

Wyoming has ranked worst or near-worst in the nation for workplace deaths for decades, per federal data. It ranked dead last in 2020 with 13 deaths per 100,000, per an AFL-CIO report. Second-place Alaska wasn't even close at 10.7.

In 2021, Wyoming posted 23% fewer deaths year-over-year — and still ranked worst in the nation.

The Industries Driving the Deaths

According to BLS data, roughly 30% of Wyoming's 2024 workplace deaths came from natural resources and mining. Oil and gas extraction dominates the state's economy — remote sites, heavy equipment, brutal weather, long shifts, and help that's an hour away if something goes wrong.

Agriculture and logging pile on top of that. So does transportation. Long hauls on rural highways, physically punishing loading work, and emergency response times that are measured in tens of minutes, not seconds.

In Mississippi, trucking leads workplace fatalities. In North Dakota, natural resources and mining account for nearly half of all on-the-job deaths.

The Stories Behind the Statistics

WyoFile has done the ground-level reporting that most national outlets ignore entirely.

In 2023 alone: a worker fell through a skylight. Another was thrown from a front-end loader. One was buried in a trench collapse. Two were crushed by vehicles they were inspecting or repairing. Five Wyoming OSHA fatal alerts — each capped at two sentences.

So far in 2025, Wyoming OSHA has already recorded four worker deaths: David Wesley Moore, 58, killed in a natural gas compressor station fire in Converse County; Alexander Harsha, 22, struck by a forklift-hit door in Sweetwater County; Liam Cobb, 19, who died by suicide falling from a wind tower in Carbon County; and Denice Downing, 47, killed in a tanker-truck explosion in Campbell County.

What Wyoming's Worker Advocates Are Saying

Wyoming AFL-CIO former Executive Director Tammy Johnson told WyoFile: "If you want to know why we don't have an adequate workforce in Wyoming, look at our [per-capita on-the-job] death rate."

Her successor Marcie Kindred echoed it: "Year after year, we gather to honor those we've lost, yet we see no meaningful improvement in workplace safety. We need concrete action to protect Wyoming's workers."

Johnson's position is that employers need to be held accountable — not just fined. She argues Wyoming has effectively zero meaningful worker protection policy.

What the Coverage Is Missing

National media largely ignores this story. When it does surface, coverage tends to frame it as an unavoidable byproduct of rugged industry — the price of doing business in oil country.

Yes, Wyoming's industries are inherently dangerous. But the consistent, decades-long failure to move the needle even incrementally isn't geography — it's policy. Or more precisely, the absence of it.

The left-leaning AFL-CIO frames this primarily through a labor organizing lens. That has its own agenda. But on the core facts — that Wyoming employers face minimal accountability and workers keep dying — the data backs them up.

Conservative-leaning outlets like ZeroHedge covered the statistics but didn't dig into the policy failure angle. Other resource-heavy states don't post numbers this catastrophic.

The Case for Fixing This

If your worksite kills someone because you cut corners on safety, that's a basic accountability problem. Wyoming's approach isn't limited government. It's no government. And workers are dying for it.

Where Things Stand

Wyoming has known about this problem for decades. The data is public. The deaths are documented. The industries driving it are identified. The names of this year's victims are already on record.

Forty-five people went to work in Wyoming in 2023 and didn't come home. Zero meaningful policy changes followed.