This is Derek Miller Speaking on Business. When the Transcontinental Railroad was completed in 1869, Salt Lake City earned the nickname “Crossroads of the West.” Today, Utah rightfully claims the title as the “Crossroads of the World.” Our residents speak 137 languages, helping us sell products around the globe.
To enhance our international outreach and welcome our state’s foreign-born population, earlier this month the Salt Lake Chamber joined together with Go Utah, the World Trade Center Utah, and the state’s Economic Development Corporation to convene, for the first time, Utah’s New Americans Task Force.
This statewide effort builds upon work started six years ago by Salt County and the Salt Lake Chamber to help the newest members of our nation.
Nearly 260,000 people now living in Utah were born in another country. Others have fled persecutions and wars in Eastern Europe and Africa to build new lives in Utah.
According to the latest data, Utah’s newest Americans paid over one billion dollars in federal taxes last year and added nearly six-hundred million dollars in state and local taxes. As they thrive, we all thrive, which is the purpose of the New Americans Task Force – to help us grow together.
I’m Derek Miller with the Salt Lake Chamber, Speaking on Business.
