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Occasional Paper – Vol: 3 As Utah continues its efforts to attract strong companies with high-wage jobs to the state, it needs to pay attention to its standing on national education rankings, which business leaders and families typically examine carefully as they contemplate relocation. While Utah’s current performance on K-12 and higher education measures does [...]
Occasional Paper – Vol: 2, Dr. Rich Kendell Education Drives Economic Success A recent report published by Noah Berger and Peter Fisher indicates that states can build a strong foundation for economic success and prosperity by investing in strategies that make people more productive. Chief among them is education. The report was published by the [...]
One of Prosperity 2020’s primary objectives is to ensure that Utah is ranked within the Top Ten US states for high school graduation by the end of this decade. We are currently ranked just 25th in the nation, so we clearly have our work cut out for us. Fortunately, we also have an [...]
The Utah Legislature has finished its first week of the 2016 session and Prosperity 2020 is tracking several House and Senate bills that we believe are crucial to our cause. These bills range from the annual push to adequately fund growth in Utah schools to support for additional opportunities for teacher development and early [...]
According to its 2014 report, the National Science Foundation ranks Utah 17th in the United States for total R&D performance, including all in-state R&D performance of the business sector, universities and colleges, federal agencies, federally funded research and development centers, and federally funded nonprofit R&D.[74] Importantly, R&D expenditures cluster and “sort” in ways that underscore [...]
In 2012, the rate of home ownership in Utah dropped to 71.1%, down from 76.2% in 2008 when the recession began, and the lowest rate since 1994.[67] Moreover, overall home sales along the Wasatch Front continue to be slow due to shaky consumer confidence. “Sales of single-family homes in Salt Lake County dropped by 9 [...]
Utah’s unemployment rate is now (as of August 2015) tied for the 6th lowest in the country at 3.7 %, behind only Nebraska (2.8%), North Dakota (2.9%), Hawaii (3.5%), New Hampshire (3.6%), and Vermont (3.6%); Utah’s unemployment rate is also substantially lower than the U.S. unemployment rate of 5.1 %.[57] While this is certainly a [...]
Salt Lake Chamber issues the following statement: SALT LAKE CITY (Dec. 9, 2015) – Lane Beattie, president and CEO of the Salt Lake Chamber, issued the following statement regarding Gov. Herbert’s fiscal year 2017 budget proposal: Utah’s robust economy is the envy of the nation and announcements this week of strong revenue growth demonstrate our [...]
THE IMPACT OF EDUCATION ON GDP Utah household income in 2013 was $59,770,[51] which is only slightly higher than household income in 1997, when it was $57,938.[52] Utah’s 3.3 % growth in household income from 2012 to 2013 was third highest in the country, behind only Wyoming and Alaska, but this could be attributed to [...]
As noted by some economic experts, median wage may be the most appropriate measure of state economic success for several reasons: It should be the goal of state development policy to raise the standard of living, which requires both improvements in productivity and that the gains from productivity (how much output is generated by the [...]
