All Areas
Children with Criminal Records Should Be Given an Automatic Second Chance
Just in 2019, 12,243 youth and children (age 17 or younger) were arrested in Utah. In 2018, 13,292 were arrested. Some of these youth were arrested for serious offenses (murder, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, etc.), but most arrests involved minor offenses like...
The Value of Mentors in Helping People Rise Above Poverty
Living in poverty can mean dealing with a lot of stress because a person is faced with one crisis after another: "How...
The Wheel of Fortune: Why Looking Down on the Poor and Disadvantaged Is a Bad Idea
Have you ever seen a person who is homeless taking refuge under a shade tree in the summer heat, with his sleeping bag...
How We Respond to the Homelessness Crisis in Salt Lake City Will Define Us
Board member Derek Miller recently wrote an op-ed for the Deseret News discussing the dire situation of hundreds of...
NGFF Changes Its Name to Transcend Together and Has New Leadership
SALT LAKE CITY -- Next Generation Freedom Fund ("NGFF"), a non-profit dedicated to lifting every person who is poor and disadvantaged, has changed its name to Transcend Together. The new name...
Clean Slate Law Helps Some Utahns with Criminal Records, But We Can Do More
In 2019, the Utah Legislature passed a bill that allows some people with nonviolent, misdemeanor criminal records to have their convictions automatically expunged under certain conditions. This law...
Utah Ranks 6th on the U.S. Prosperity Index, Nevada 46th
The Legatum Institute based in London has published state rankings as part of its United States Prosperity Index 2020. The Index uses 200 indicators in 11 categories to measure prosperity among the...
Romney’s Faith Should Move Him to a Humane Immigration Policy
CEO Paul Mero recently wrote an op-ed for the Salt Lake Tribune urging Senator Mitt Romney to use a human approach in addressing immigrants on the southern border of the United States. Here is an...
Utah and Nevada Rank in the Bottom Four for Mental Health Among the States
According to Mental Health America, Utah ranks 48th out of 51 states (and D.C.) in overall mental health (not good), 50th in the nation for adult mental health, and 41st for youth. Nevada fares even...
Utah Needs a Child-centered Approach to Fighting Poverty
Paul Mero recently wrote an op-ed for the Salt Lake Tribune in which he highlights new research challenging many assumptions about how to break the cycle of intergenerational poverty. One conclusion...
Five Steps to Build a Transcendant Political Culture in Utah
President and CEO Paul Mero recently published an op-ed in the Salt Lake Tribune providing some basic steps for creating a transcendant political culture in Utah. Here are some excerpts: First, we...
New Research Pinpoints Lives and Circumstances of IGP Children and Families
A new report sheds interesting light on children in intergenerational poverty and their families. Here are the key findings: Most IGP Parents and Teens see nothing wrong with their current situation...
Report: Intergenerational Poverty in Utah, 2019
Utah’s Intergenerational Welfare Reform Commission has provided its latest update on intergenerational poverty in Utah. Learn more about it here.
Utah Is One of the Happiest States in the Nation
WalletHub’s analysts considered income, physical health, personal purpose, and social connectivity to determine which states are home to the happiest Americans. In order to do so, it compared the 50...
Utah’s Senators Should Vote No on Ron Mortensen
CEO Paul Mero recently wrote an op-ed for the Salt Lake Tribune arguing that Pres. Trump's nomination to head the Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration (PRM) should not be affirmed by...
Reimagining Welfare (Part 2 of 2)
CEO Paul Mero wrote a commentary for Utah Politico Hub (second part) outlining some principles and guidelines for a more effective approach to welfare and the safety net. Here's an excerpt:...
Reimagining Welfare (Part 1 of 2)
CEO Paul Mero wrote a commentary for Utah Politico Hub regarding the importance of having an effective welfare safety net. He also added, "Caring for our neighbors in need is the only way we’ll...
Intergenerational Poverty in Utah, 2018
Over the past six years, Utah has made progress addressing intergenerational poverty. The progress is not being made through the establishment of new government programs or significant increases in...
One of every four residents in Utah’s San Juan County lives in poverty
Utah’s San Juan County - dominated by the Navajo reservation - languishes with one of every four residents (25.9 percent) living in poverty. That is 22nd worst among counties in the West. At the...
Civility and Noblesse Oblige
Civility hardly seems conceivable to many in our day, because they have forgotten the history of political and religious conflict that preceded the American founding and establishment of our...
Conservatives are Wrong to Dismiss Feminism
In the six months since the #MeToo movement began, conservatives have, at times rightly, questioned or criticized some aspects of it. But too often they have wrongly downplayed, ignored, or...
No, the ‘Real Gender Wage Gap’ isn’t 51 Percent
For decades, the term “gender wage gap” has referred to the difference in median earnings between full-time working women and full-time working men. Unfortunately, the term is becoming confused...
Best Practices Guide for Closing the Gender Wage Gap
The Salt Lake Chamber and its affiliated Women’s Leadership Institute urges all businesses to review the contents of this document, identify what specific actions they can take to close the gender...
Utah now has America’s biggest gender wage gap – women earn 70 cents on the dollar compared to men
Women who work full time and year-round in both states on average earned only 70 cents on the dollar in 2016 compared with men, according to a new study using U.S. Census data by the American...
At the Heart of Social and Political Disintegration Is the Plight of Our Poor
In a recent op-ed in the Salt Lake Tribune, NGFF president and CEO Paul Mero makes the case that through a strategic focus on Utah's poor and needy we can create a transcendent political culture...
Utah Ranks #1 on the Family Prosperity Index
As the Dow Jones Industrial Average measures the rise and fall of the stock market, the Family Prosperity Index measures the strength and prosperity of families – and the nation – by combining the...
How Utah’s Child Care Shortage Impacts the Gender Wage Gap
When women can't find child care, whether because it's unavailable or unaffordable, some turn to jobs that may pay less but offer greater mothering flexibility, while others leave the workforce...
More Quest for Community
Robert Nisbet, author of the 1953 book The Quest for Community, defined alienation as “the state of mind that can find a social order remote, incomprehensible, or fraudulent; beyond real hope or...
