All Areas
A Heart Full of Love . . . or Disdain?
What do you think when you see a person on the street or elsewhere who is wearing worn, outdated clothing and appears to be uneducated and poor? What we think about that person is a reflection of who we are, and, more importantly, it can affect the person we're...
Poverty Measures Don’t Accurately Measure Poverty
Poverty measurement guidelines are frequently used as a tool to determine who qualifies for government benefits and...
Monetary Bail Is Harmful to People Who Are Poor
Government created monetary bail to hold people who have been accused of crimes accountable, but the bail system...
Reviewing the Necessity of Utah’s Occupational Licenses
On January 7, 2021, one of newly elected Gov. Spencer Cox's first actions was to issue an order requiring state...
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...
Possible Civil Rights Violations at Utah Elementary and High Schools
There at least 23 open investigations into alleged civil rights violations — most on the basis of disability, sex or race — in elementary and high schools across seven Utah school districts that...
Utah Legislature Leaves Thousands of Workers without Workplace Protections
Workers at companies with less than 15 employees still have no legal recourse for biases against their gender, race, sex, religion, pregnancy or other protected classes. A bill that would have...
Addiction is not a Moral Failure
Latent or explicit, the view of addiction as a moral failure is doing real damage. The stigma against addiction is “the single biggest reason America is failing in its response to the opioid...
County Plans Overview, 2017
From September 2016 to June 2017, thirteen Utah counties were selected by Utah’s Department of Workforce Services (DWS) to develop local strategic plans to address high rates of intergenerational...
Utah Omnibus Research, 2017
Next Generation Freedom Fund teamed with Heart & Mind Strategies to survey Utahns about their understanding of poverty in Utah, especially intergenerational poverty. Findings reveal that Utahns...
Report: Intergenerational Poverty in Utah, 2017
Under the leadership of Utah’s Lieutenant Governor, leaders in 11 rural counties and two urban counties were engaged to develop local plans that align with the Commission’s goals to reduce IGP among...
It’s Time to Fight Poverty the “Utah Way”
CEO Paul Mero wrote an op-ed in the Salt Lake Tribune proposing a compact for poverty issues similar to the Utah Compact created for issues involving immigration. Mero suggests that the following...
The American Dream is Alive in Utah
There is still one part of the country where the poor can become successful: Salt Lake City. If you’re in the bottom 20 percent of incomes and living in Charlotte, North Carolina, you only have a 4...
Failure: The City of Draper, Utah
After more than three hours of listening to over 700 Draper residents protest his proposal to volunteer two Draper sites for a new homeless resource center, Mayor Troy Walker rescinded his offer...
