Salt Lake Tribune business coverage for Salt Lake City and the surrounding area.
Utah boasts a low corporate tax rate and other benefits for businesses — but what about low-wage workers and the environment for women?But when those or other groups change their lens, the state’s business environment becomes less celebrated — Utah dropped to No.
46 on Oxfam’s 2023 list of theHere’s a look at the data shaping these depictions of our booming Western state.The state’s young population and educated workforce is often cited by the state’s boosters — and those factors helped Utah also hit No. 1 in WalletHub’s underlying “access to resources” category. It won points for having a large working-age population and the share that has at least a bachelor’s degree. Access to financing — calculated with small business loans and venture capital investment — also mattered here. Utah boasts an array ofUtah also ranked in the top 10 in the underlying “business environment” category, based on factors that include a state’s variety of industries, its job and GDP growth since before the pandemic or since its early months, and its government’s digital savvy. Utah’s lowest ranking was in business costs, though it has one of the lowest corporate tax rates in the country and offersthe nearby town of Washington— nurtured, in part, by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints training members to serve missions around the world — also, another draw for businesses. And while there has been upward pressure in recent years, when adjusted for inflation, Utah’sAnd Utah is in the minority of states that have left their minimum wage at the federal threshold — $7.25 — a major contributor to its low ranking at No. 46 on Oxfam’s 2023 annual list of best states to work in. Oxfam, a global nonprofit that fights inequality, tracks 26 policies in three areas — wages, worker protections and rights to organize. Utah was a bit higher, at No. 44 overall, when Salt Lake Tribune data columnist Andy Larsen took a look at the numbers in 2022. “Here’s the thing,” Larsen wrote. “I don’t think minimum wage is a very representative way of looking at the issue of worker pay.”, “there were 866,000 hourly employees in Utah in 2021,” Larsen explained. “In total, 13,000 of those had earnings of minimum wage or below.” “... We should actively try to improve their lives — including by boosting the minimum wage,” Larsen opined. “But they make up just 1.5% of Utah’s total hourly workforce.”, including the lack of laws regulating abrupt changes to work schedules, requiring sexual harassment training in private workplaces and safeguards against smoke and heat for outdoor crews., “it’s hard to describe Utah as a union-friendly state, but it hasn’t outright prohibited union activities like a handful of other states.” For Utahns who do make minimum wage, the state’s housing crisis can be especially harsh. There is no county statewide where working at minimum wage for 40 hours a week can earn enough to afford the cheapest living space, not even a studio, according to research by the National Low Income Housing Coalition.“We’ve cut out a lot of the first-time buyers,” said Dave Anderton, spokesperson for the Salt Lake Board of Realtors. “But even move-up buyers are getting frozen out of this market. We’re in a dilemma right now.”It has the country’s worst gender wage gap, comparatively few women in executive positions and disparities in political representation, WalletHub pointed out in this year’s ranking — all data points that have been persistent and widely cited in other evaluations of life for women in Utah. “Being last again does not feel great,” said Kelly Whited Jones, president of the Utah Equal Rights Amendment Coalition, in 2021. “It’s painful for me to read those numbers and understand what that translates to in people’s lives and families’ lives.”The data showed that while women in Utah had improved over the years across different metrics — gender wage gap, political representation, education and top jobs — they still lagged behind their peers in other states.uses different and broader criteria, including women’s social well-being, health care and safety. Utah ranked higher there, at No. 37 among 50 states and the District of Columbia. “It can be easy to be dismissive of reports like this that don’t show the ‘whole picture,’” Utah State University Professor Susan R. Madsen, director of the“But the more data and information we have allows us to be more strategic in finding ways to ensure that all Utahns can thrive,” she continued. “The research is clear: improving women’s economic and social well-being, along with women’s health care and safety, helps families, workplaces and society at large. Helping women helps Utah.”James Huntsman on the LDS Church: Why he left it, sued it, and what he hopes to change in itWhat does Rose Park taste like? A pastry chef finds inspiration in Utah’s towns and neighborhoods.Anne Case and Angus Deaton: In America, not having a college degree can take years off your life
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