Economic numbers in Utah a mixed bag

Utah's overall poverty rate and the number of Utahns doing without insurance declined a bit in 2007, while the median household income ticked up slightly, according to annual census data released Tuesday.

But local economists and nonprofit advocacy groups say the numbers also show that the steadily improving economy isn't improving the lives of most Utahns.

"The lack of a substantial increase in incomes over the course of this past economic recovery, along with our failure to reduce poverty, show that the benefits of economic growth in Utah have not been broadly shared," economist Allison Rowland said.

"We know that a lot of families in our state were already struggling to make ends meet, even during the economic good times," Rowland said. "Now the price of basic purchases such as food and gasoline are rising, and family incomes just aren't keeping up."

And although Utah's poverty rate dipped below 10 percent, put in context of the past six years, progress toward reducing the state's poverty rate remains flat, the U.S. Census Bureau reports in its annual American Community Survey of the fiscal status of Americans during the 2007 calendar year.

Just over 15 percent of Utahns (about 340,000) didn't have health insurance in 2007. Compared to 2006, the difference is statistically insignificant. The past six years, however, the trend has been up; 12.9 percent of Utahns didn't have insurance in 2001.

The number of uninsured children increased by 2.9 percent, according to the survey, although the numbers are taken before Utah legislators permanently opened enrollment in state's Children's Health Insurance Program earlier this year. That move is expected to reduce the number of uninsured children.

Inflation-adjusted median household income improved slightly — to $55,974, or an increase of about $350. If data is limited to typical wage-earning households in Utah, income remained stagnant the past year and is almost equal to incomes reported in 2001.

All in all, the data shows Utah pretty much static across the three general categories targeted in the survey. If refined to include race, age and number of persons per household, the local economic picture dims even more.

Nationwide, 37.3 million people — or 12.5 percent of the population — fell below the official federal poverty threshold in 2007, which is not statistically different than the 12.3 percent who were in poverty in 2006.