Utah is often ranked at the top among states, but is occasionally at the bottom.
Due in part to the Beehive State’s demographics, we are sometimes number 1, but other times … not so much. For instance, we have the largest families, and in fact, are number 1 in the nation for family size. Relatedly, however, we spend less per student on K-12 education than any other state in the country.
Another top-of-the-nation for Utah is our ranking for social capital. The Utah Foundation’s Social Capital Index project from about four years ago showed that we were, in fact, better than all the other states on an index of over 30 metrics.
But what is social capital? Simply put, social capital refers to the ways in which people utilize networks and social connections to benefit themselves and their communities.
Why does social capital matter? Because high levels of social capital are associated with:
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Better resource allocation and social cohesion
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Accelerated economic development and mobility
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Improved education and health outcomes
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Stronger community engagement and disaster resilience
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Reduced reliance on government services
This year, the Utah Foundation is revisiting its Social Capital Index. It details the 30 or so metrics, which are divided into seven categories.
The first category is civic participation. The data show that we’ve slipped a bit in terms of our relative level of civic participation since 2021. This is due to a decline in participation in public meetings. While voter turnout is looking good, we are less likely to attend meetings of city council members, community planners or others.
The second category, social trust, is on the rise. The Pew Research Center has defined social trust as “a belief in the honesty, integrity, and reliability of others — a ‘faith in people.’” We measure this by looking at the rates of various types of crime, such as fraud, public corruption and violent crime. As crime increases, social trust declines, leading to a further increase in crime. But we can, and have, turned that cycle around. Violent crime rates dropped precipitously from 1990 to 2010 and have remained relatively low since. Further, fraud and public corruption have dropped over the past 15 years. This bodes well for a “faith in people.”
That said, we seem to have lost our faith in institutions. After an upswing in the late 1990s, trust in government began to decline after 2000, dropping from 50% of people who trusted Washington most of the time to around 20% for the past 15 years. Trust in the news media has plummeted, particularly among conservatives and independents, with Gallup recording a decline from over 70% in the 1970s to just over 30% in 2024.
Perhaps tied to our lack of faith in institutions is our level of political polarization. We are currently in an environment where Americans are more polarized than ever, once as liberals vs. conservatives, and now as MAGA vs. everyone else. In this environment, social capital may provide some answers. One key aspect of social capital is a generalized sense of trust in a community. By our measure, Utah is second in the nation in terms of social trust. So, we may be more likely to trust our neighbors to protect the community, but when overlaid with partisanship, we are less likely to trust their political choices.
If we can overcome this extreme partisanship through a refreshed openness to differing opinions, perhaps we can improve our civic engagement. With high levels of both civic engagement and social trust, we can further increase our social capital in other ways, benefiting family health and household economics.
The result would be an increase in the quality of life for all Utahns and for all Americans. Social capital will be key to that future.
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