produced through our polling and policy research below. 
KUER Public Radio aired an in-depth look at each of the top 10 issues from October 1st-12th. These featured interviews with Utah Foundation staff, elected officials, and policy experts. Reaching for Educational Equity: An Evaluation of Utah’s Rural Schools
The vast majority of Utah is rural, though only a small portion of Utahns live and work in rural parts of the state. Rural schools educate about 15% of Utah’s students, spread over a wide and varied geography. Utah’s rural educators - concerned about the challenges facing their schools - requested that Utah Foundation analyze educational inputs and outputs to determine whether students in these areas are receiving opportunities for success comparable to non-rural students. … Read more »
The Affordable Care Act: Placing Healthcare Reform in a Historical and Comparative Context
Healthcare has been an important issue for Utah voters throughout the past decade, but the 2012 Utah Priorities Survey revealed they are now more concerned with it. In the 2012 survey, 69% of respondents indicated that they were concerned or very concerned with healthcare, making it the fourth most important issue to voters in this election year.
Healthcare is not only an important issue to voters, but a divisive one as well. The Utah Priorities Survey of Party Delegates and Voters, which was conducted two months after the Utah Priorities Survey, showed that Democratic delegates and voters were more likely to prioritize healthcare issues than Republicans. … Read more »
Utah Priorities 2012, Issue #1: Jobs & the Economy
In 2012, voters listed jobs and the economy as the most important priority in the election year. This brief explains that while Utah’s job growth was stronger than the nation’s before and after the Great Recession, job losses were worse than the national average during the recession. Utah’s unemployment rate peaked at 8.3% in 2010, but stayed well below the national average throughout the recession. Within Utah, the young and those with lower levels of education were most affected by the recession. At current employment growth, the U.S. economy will recover in 2015, and Utah will recover in early 2014. … Read more »
Utah Priorities 2012, Issue #2: K-12 Education
In 2012, voters listed K-12 education as the 2nd most important priority in the election year. Utah voters have ranked K-12 education as one of their top three concerns in each of the Utah Priorities Project surveys dating back to 2004. Voters list the top three issues within K-12 education as funding, student preparation for college and career, and teacher quality. This report addresses those funding challenges, as well as recent budgetary and policy developments. It also assesses student achievement in Utah, highlighting the fact that Utah’s students’ science scores are among the top in the nation. … Read more »
Utah Priorities 2012, Issue #3: Energy Issues
In 2012, voters listed energy as the 3rd most important priority in the election year. This brief explains how Utahns heat and cool their homes and businesses, and addresses the status of exploration for traditional and renewable energy within the state. It also explains that the concern with energy was mainly due to the cost of gasoline, despite the fact that Utah has the lowest residential energy prices in the country. Interestingly, the concern with energy in past Utah Priorities surveys seems to fluctuate with the cost of gasoline. … Read more »
Utah Priorities 2012, Issue #4: Healthcare
In 2012, voters listed healthcare as the 4th most important priority in the election year. This brief explains that healthcare is not just an important issue to voters, but a divisive one as well. One of the most polarizing issues within healthcare is the Affordable Care Act. This brief explains some of the major components of the ACA, when those policies will be implemented, and how they will be funded. It also compares the American health care system to other health care models throughout the world. This report will be followed by a more in-depth study of the Affordable Care Act later this month. … Read more »
Utah Priorities 2012, Issue #5: Taxes & Government Spending
In 2012, voters listed higher taxes and government spending as the 5th most important priority in the election year. This policy brief explains that while Utah has historically had a high burden of taxes and fees, its burden has actually fallen below the national average in recent years. This is largely due to major reductions in Utah’s income and sales taxes in 2006 and 2007. These changes, as well as the Great Recession, had significant effects on state government revenue, and have thus influenced state government spending as well. … Read more »
Utah Priorities 2012, Issue #6: Higher Education
In 2012, voters listed higher education as the 6th most important priority in the election year. This policy brief addresses the increase in enrollment in Utah’s colleges and universities, the decrease in state funding for higher education, and the increase in tuition throughout USHE institutions. It also discusses the issue of student loan debt, which is currently at a record high in the U.S. Finally, it examines the goal that by 2020, 66% of Utah’s adult population will have a post-secondary degree or certificate, and the challenges this will pose to Utah’s higher education system. … Read more »
Utah Priorities 2012, Issue #7: Environmental Issues
In 2012, voters listed environmental issues as the 7th most important priority in the election year. This brief reviews how Utah cities and counties compare to the rest of the nation in terms of air quality, as well as the future of regulating greenhouse gases as an air pollutant. It finds that the state as a whole is compliant with most EPA required air pollution measures, but struggles with short-term ozone and particulate matter levels, mostly due to northern Utah inversions. … Read more »
Utah Priorities 2012, Issue #8: Partisan Politics
In 2012, voters listed partisan politics as the 8th most important priority in the election year. This policy brief discusses party polarization over time at the national level, and party dominance at the state level. It also examines Utah’s declining voter turnout rates, and explores various explanations for this trend. … Read more »
Utah Priorities 2012, Issue #9: Poverty
In 2012, voters listed poverty as the 9th most important priority in the election year. This policy brief examines poverty rates over time, recessionary effects on poverty, and the poverty rates of subgroups in Utah. It also shows the impact that certain governmental measures have on mitigating poverty. Lastly, it examines how poverty is measured and alternative measures. … Read more »
Utah Priorities 2012, Issue #10: Immigration
In 2012, voters listed immigration as the 10th most important priority in the election year. This policy brief dealing with this issue explains why immigration grew at a rapid pace at the national and state levels in the 1990s, why it has decreased in recent years and what legal actions the state has taken to deal with this. It also discusses how immigration has changed Utah throughout the past two decades, and how it ill continue to do so. … Read more »
Partisan Politics, Polarization, and Participation
In the 2012 Utah Priorities Survey, respondents listed partisan politics as one of their top concerns for the upcoming elections. This is significant not only because it was the first time this issue had been listed as a top-ten concern in this series of surveys, but also the first time it was seen as a concern at all. An additional area of concern that may be affected by partisan politics is Utah’s declining voter turnout rates. … Read more »
Recovering From the Great Recession: Are We There Yet?
The “Great Recession” that occurred between 2007 and 2009 has had a profound impact on the economy of Utah and on the nation as a whole. It lasted 18 months and was not only well above the average length of a recession since the Great Depression, but was also the longest recession since that time.
This recession was also arguably the worst recession since 1945, with job growth at the lowest rates since that time, and high unemployment and low labor force participation rates rivaling those seen in the recession that occurred in the early 1980s. … Read more »
The 2012 Utah Priorities Survey of Party Delegates and Voters
As part of the 2012 Utah Priorities Project, Utah Foundation and the Hinckley Institute of Politics have surveyed Utah voters and delegates to the major parties’ state conventions. This survey was conducted for the first time in 2010, showing distinct differences between party delegates and voters, with delegates usually taking more zealous positions than their parties’ voters. The 2012 survey also shows differences between voters and delegates, but those differences are not as pronounced as in 2010. … Read more »
Utah Foundation recently released The 2012 Utah Priorities Survey, which provides a summary of the findings of a statewide Dan Jones & Associates survey assessing which issues are most important this election year and how voters feel about Utah’s economy, society and politics. For the first time, Utah Foundation also requested that the gubernatorial candidates complete part of this survey. All of the Republican and Democratic candidates and two of three third-party candidates completed the survey. … Read more »
The 2012 Utah Priorities Survey: The Top Issues and Concerns of Utah Voters for the 2012 Election
In this election year, Utahns are more confident that the state is heading in the right direction than they were two years ago. However, they are still not as confident as they were in the 2004 and 2008 elections. Their concerns about issues like jobs and the economy, public education, and healthcare remain strong. Some issues that were important in the 2010 election, such as ethics of elected officials, states’ rights vs. the federal government, and federal lands in Utah have diminished, and Utahns are now more concerned with energy issues, higher education, partisan politics, and poverty. … Read more »
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