Health care, air quality and education have all surpassed jobs and the economy as residents’ foremost concerns, a major change reflective of the state’s nearly unbroken half-decade streak of job growth and steady economic improvement, according to a new report.
Released this week by the Utah Foundation, a nonpartisan think-tank based in Salt Lake City, the 2016 Utah Priorities Project Survey shows a top-10 list of priorities that has evolved significantly since the last survey was done in 2012 — largely along the same lines as political discourse and media coverage.
Jobs and the economy dropped from first to fifth, and issues like energy issues, higher education and immigration have dropped off the list completely, replaced by concerns with air quality, water and crime.
And despite an increasingly fragmented political makeup — the report shows Utahns being either more conservative or more liberal than the more centrist nation-as-a-whole — survey respondents of all stripes listed health care among their top concerns.
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