Census shows Utah's highs, lows

South Jordan now has Utah's highest median household income: $85,000. Spanish Fork women now have its highest fertility rate, at triple the national ratio. Syracuse has Utah's highest high school graduation rate, nearly at 100 percent.

Until today, such data for them would have been available only once every 10 years in the census. Because their populations are between 20,000 and 65,000, annual surveys by the Census Bureau did not have sample sizes large enough to reliably estimate social and economic data there.

But the census is now combining survey data over three years to provide reliable estimates and released the first set Tuesday. Those new 2005-07 estimates for all places with populations greater than 20,000 are available online at census.gov/acs.

"Communities are no longer limited to a once-a-decade look at their population's characteristics. The American Community Survey's multiyear data will allow towns and communities to track how they are changing on an ongoing basis," said Census Bureau director Steve H. Murdock.

Following are some samples of how the 34 Utah cities, towns and townships that have more than 20,000 people each (and the 14 Utah counties that do) rank in some of the newly released social and economic estimates for 2005-07.

RICH MAN, POOR MAN: South Jordan has the state's highest median household income for the period, $85,311. It was followed by Draper, $80,524; Riverton, $78,411; Syracuse, $75,165; and Sandy, $73,322.

On the other end of the economic spectrum, South Salt Lake had the state's lowest, $31,868. It was followed by some cities with large university student populations: Logan, $33,007; Provo, $36,258; Cedar City, $38,339; and Ogden, $39,771.

HISPANIC INFLUX: West Valley City has the state's highest percentage of its population that is Hispanic: 28.1 percent — or more than one of every four residents in 2005-07. That is way up from 18.5 percent there in the 2000 Census.

Not far behind are Ogden, 27.8 percent (up from 23.6 percent in 2000); Midvale, 27.3 percent (up from 20.8 percent in 2000); South Salt Lake, 27.2 (up from 22.4 percent in 2000); and Kearns, 26.5 percent (up from 19.6 percent in 2000).

Few Hispanics apparently are living in Holladay (2.7 percent of the population), Riverton (2.8 percent), Bountiful (3.1 percent); South Jordan (3.8 percent) and Sandy (4.7 percent).

Of note, South Salt Lake leads the state in the percentage of its population that was born in a foreign country: 22.5 percent. It is followed by West Valley City, 20 percent; Salt Lake City, 18.5 percent; Midvale, 17 percent; and Ogden, 15.9 percent.