Utah
Where do Utah’s children fall when it comes to poverty, insurance?
Inventive Studying Academy youngsters hear as Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson reads a ebook to them in Salt Lake Metropolis. Knowledge launched by the U.S. Census Bureau in September revealed new findings in native and federal poverty ranges and uninsured charges of kids. (Jeffrey D. Allred, Deseret Information)
Estimated learn time: 4-5 minutes
SALT LAKE CITY — The state of Utah is usually thought to be family-centered, with the best variety of youngsters per capita. New knowledge launched by the U.S. Census Bureau reveals the place the state has triumphed and fallen brief on behalf of its youngsters.
Youngsters nationwide noticed a lower in youngster poverty charges and a rise in well being protection insurance coverage in 2021, in line with the U.S. Census Bureau. The information revealed that youngster poverty fell to its lowest recorded stage — from 9.7% in 2020 to five.2% in 2021, when calculated by the Supplemental Poverty Measure.
When calculated by the official poverty measure, youngster poverty declined 0.7 proportion factors from 16.0% to fifteen.3%. The official poverty measure is calculated by an individual’s or household’s revenue set to thresholds that may range by the dimensions of the household and ages of its members. The calculation doesn’t embrace in-kind advantages reminiscent of vitamin help, housing and power packages, or regional variations in prices.
The completely different strategies of calculating poverty can create challenges when evaluating state knowledge.
We’re doing higher than each different state within the nation for kids and that is one thing for all Utahns I believe to be happy with.
–Matthew Weinstein, Voices for Utah Youngsters director
“You get legitimate outcomes nationally however not on the state stage — particularly in a small state like Utah the place we’re about half the dimensions of the typical state. In order that’s the place we do not have good single-year knowledge for what impression did the kid tax credit score growth have in Utah,” mentioned Matthew Weinstein, Voices for Utah Youngsters’s state precedence partnership director.
Current knowledge calculated on a state stage revealed that Utah has the second lowest poverty charge nationally at 8.6% and the bottom within the nation for kids at 8.1%, in line with knowledge gathered within the 2021 American Group Survey. Whole figures positioned 281,763 Utahns, together with 76,102 youngsters, beneath the poverty stage total.
“These are nonetheless … they’re large numbers but it surely’s one thing we will actually nonetheless really feel excellent about. We’re doing higher than each different state within the nation for kids and that is one thing for all Utahns I believe to be happy with,” Weinstein mentioned.
So what makes Utah completely different on the subject of youngsters?
Utah has the best proportion within the nation of kids rising up in married-couple households, versus single-parent households — with solely 19% of kids residing in a single-parent dwelling, in line with 2019 census knowledge. Single-parent households are vulnerable to poverty when contemplating median family revenue.
The cultural values positioned on marriage and household have supplied a “enormous benefit” when weighing poverty numbers, Weinstein mentioned. Utah ranked eleventh total for median family revenue in 2021, a rating he attributes largely to dual-income households.
“Contemplating that we’re not a high-wage state, our median hourly wages are beneath the nationwide common … that fantastic Beehive work ethic combines with our robust dedication to marriage and household to offer us these great cultural benefits on the subject of poverty and youngster poverty and our total stage of family revenue,” mentioned Weinstein.
Whereas Utah has triumphed in some ways on behalf of its youngsters — there are nonetheless some strides to be made.
The American Group Survey revealed that 84% % of Utah’s low-income youngsters who certified for Medicaid in 2021 weren’t enrolled — the best charge within the nation of the 36 states to develop Medicaid.
Whereas the variety of these enrolled in Medicaid grew in January 2022, that quantity won’t doubtless final. The rise in enrollment is essentially attributed to the COVID-19 pandemic and the declaration of a public well being emergency. Congress elevated funding for Medicaid and handed legal guidelines to maintain people from dropping Medicaid protection throughout the nationwide well being emergency.
The adjustments additionally had been mirrored nationally with the uninsured charge amongst youngsters lowering 0.6 proportion factors to five.0% between 2020 and 2021, doubtless pushed by the rise in entry to the packages.
Now as President Joe Biden has declared the “pandemic over,” the general public well being emergency is because of expire, leaving Utah youngsters weak.
“When the (public well being emergency) ends, that is after I assume we are going to we are going to see some actual shifts, and that’s one thing that retains me up at evening — is what would be the impression?” mentioned Jessie Mandle, deputy director and senior well being coverage analyst with Voices for Utah Youngsters.
Whereas Mandle considers offering insurance coverage for each youngster statewide as “the correct factor to do for our children” it’s also cost-effective, she argued.
“With out that primary basis of medical insurance, they are surely already at a drawback. We’re already creating extra obstacles for youths to have the ability to thrive,” mentioned Mandle. “Medical health insurance is so vital for youths and to have the ability to not solely be serving to within the brief time period but in addition for his or her long-term well being and in addition to their precise tutorial success and even their financial outcomes later in life.
“Our state and native governments are spending virtually $9 million yearly in pediatric uncompensated care and that’s greater than it could value than the invoice to cowl all children,” she mentioned. “It is so vital that we meet this second. I actually simply, that is my hope is that our state leaders will see that.”
Associated tales
Most up-to-date State of Utah tales
Extra tales chances are you’ll be enthusiastic about
Utah
Utah family creates 'Giving Gallery' to spread joy of art
COTTONWOOD HEIGHTS, Utah — You might have heard of little libraries in neighborhoods, but have you heard of Giving Galleries?
A family in Cottonwood Heights is using their love for art to bring joy to those around them.
On the corner of Promenade and Camino is Abigail Bradshaw.
“I’m standing next to an art gallery, my art gallery. That’s my house,” she proudly said.
Abigail is showing her tiny art gallery filled with pieces made by her family and others who want to contribute. This home used to be her great-grandmother’s.
“She was an artist, and so, I wanted to continue that legacy,” said Katie Bradshaw, Abigail’s mom. They found a box, painted it, propped it up, and filled it with tiny art. Anyone can just look at the art, pick up something they like, or put their own piece inside.
Miles Jacobsen is a friend who saw what the Bradshaws were doing and added his artwork to the box.
For people who want to make their own masterpieces, there is also a box of free art supplies in the gallery box. You can come by to pick up paint, paintbrushes, and tiny canvasses to create your own art, which you can drop off at the “giving gallery” to bring joy to someone else.
“I feel really glad that people come and get some art and put it in there,” said Abigail.
Filling the box is something Katie does with her kids.
“I hope that they can carry this with them, that they continue sharing art, no matter where they are,” she said.
Spreading joy to everyone who walks by, and letting the cycle continue.
“I want them to feel happy and glad that they got some, so they could return some back here,” added Abigail.
Utah
Amid traffic, Utah walked to Leafs’ arena pregame
TORONTO — The Utah Hockey Club said players were forced to walk to their game against the Maple Leafs after their bus got stuck in Toronto traffic Sunday night.
The team posted a video on social media of team members walking to Scotiabank Arena, with player Maveric Lamoureux saying the bus was “not moving at all.”
Several city streets had been closed during the day for an annual Santa Claus parade.
The Maple Leafs earned their fourth consecutive win by defeating Utah 3-2.
The viral incident prompted Ontario Premier Doug Ford to call the congestion “embarrassing” and “unacceptable,” highlighting his government’s plan to address the city’s gridlock through bike lane legislation.
It wasn’t the first time a Toronto visitor had to ditch their vehicle to make it to an event on time.
In June, former One Direction band member Niall Horan had to walk through traffic to get to his concert at Scotiabank Arena.
Utah
Utah Highway Patrol responds to your suggestions on making Utah roads safer
SALT LAKE CITY — FOX 13 News is Driven to Change and that includes bringing you reports on important topics like road rage, construction, and wrong-way drivers. During our coverage, we continually ask for any questions or concerns you may have along Utah’s roadways.
The feedback has gotten an enormous response, so FOX 13 sat down with Lieutenant Cameron Roden on Good Day Utah to help address input we have been getting, from the perspective of Utah Highway Patrol.
Speeding in Utah, there’s so much of it, and then you can sometimes say that that leads to tailgating, which may lead to road rage incidents. What are you seeing out there in terms of speed and what can we do to lessen the effects of that?
Lt. Cameron Roden: Speed is our number one thing that we see. That’s our number one traffic stop that we make, and we know that it leads to the majority of crashes in the state of Utah. So we definitely put an emphasis on speed and it does lead to other things. Not just crashes. It leads to road rage and other things .So, as far as what changes can we make, we need to start with ourselves, and really say, ‘Hey, do I have a problem?’ You know, we just need to start with ourselves and not think that it’s something else’s problem. If we slow our speeds ourselves, and then it’ll start to to catch on and people will do that speed limit. So, but the legislature has definitely taken some steps to help us address, especially the the speeds that are those excessive speeds where we have that one zero five law now that addresses those speeds and increases fines and and hopefully discourages people from those extreme speeds.
Some of our viewers talked about maybe capping some of the speed limits for truck drivers. Is that something that’s even feasible?
You know, that would be something that would have to go through that, that legislative process to see whether we that would be something that would help. But ultimately, if we we start with ourselves, hopefully that will make that change and reduce crashes and fatalities.
There are things being done to try and intervene and stop wrong-way drivers before they happen. But some of our viewers propose things like spikes. What are your thoughts on implementing something like that?
We’ve had over the last several years, a rash of wrong-way drivers, and it’ll come in onesie twos, and then we’ll go for a period of time without that. And so, but this spike over the last couple of years has caused us to to create a task force to look at wrongly driving what things can be done. And so getting all these stakeholders together between UDOT and Highway Safety, looking at what technologies and things that could be implemented, and and things like, wrong way detection cameras. Those are some things that are being actually used in the state of Utah right now to help us spot those and and advance signage, getting people to realize they’re going the wrong way and turn around. The the spike strips have actually been talked about in our task force a little bit. And if something like that would even be, it is that technology available right now. And as what we could actually implement in the state of Utah, there’s nothing that really fits the bill right now because of our environment. We have our snow plows. We have snow and things like that. Something like that really wouldn’t be practical right now.
Probably the most talked about topic that we’ve received was distracted driving, texting while driving. You went out, I saw on the UHP social media page, that you guys just driving and you look to your right and left and you can find someone texting. What kind of enforcement do we have against distracted driving specifically on your phone?
This is something that we like you said, we see it every day. We go out to crashes,and and we may suspect that a driver may be distracted. And so, it’s something that’s definitely under-reported. It’s it’s a bigger problem than than the numbers really show.And so not only do we address it during our normal patrols.Our officers are seeing it, and addressing it while they’re out there.But we’ll also do targeted patrols where the highway safety office actually gives out additional funds for that targeted enforcement, where we’ll get an unmarked vehicle. We go out driving down the roads where we try to spot these vehicles and and get them stopped because those are those are a big danger on our roadways where our attention and our focus needs to be on driving.
If you have ideas or suggestions for how to make Utah’s roadways safer click here to be taken to our Driven to Change form. There you can share your ideas or suggestions.
DRIVEN TO CHANGE
Share your ideas on how to make Utah’s roads safer
-
Business1 week ago
Column: Molly White's message for journalists going freelance — be ready for the pitfalls
-
Science6 days ago
Trump nominates Dr. Oz to head Medicare and Medicaid and help take on 'illness industrial complex'
-
Politics1 week ago
Trump taps FCC member Brendan Carr to lead agency: 'Warrior for Free Speech'
-
Technology1 week ago
Inside Elon Musk’s messy breakup with OpenAI
-
Lifestyle1 week ago
Some in the U.S. farm industry are alarmed by Trump's embrace of RFK Jr. and tariffs
-
World1 week ago
Protesters in Slovakia rally against Robert Fico’s populist government
-
Health3 days ago
Holiday gatherings can lead to stress eating: Try these 5 tips to control it
-
News1 week ago
They disagree about a lot, but these singers figure out how to stay in harmony