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How Utah Keeps the American Dream Alive

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Re: How Utah Keeps the American Dream Alive

#11

Post by jeffwass »

davidf18 wrote: post #4

The $20K per year per pupil that NYC (and other large cities) spends is skewed because of the enormous costs of special education. I don't know the numbers for NYC, but from an article I saw about Philly: cost to educate non-special need child: $10K, moderately special need: (7% of students) $20K, severe special need: (another 7% of students) $40K. I suspect Salt Lake City has a much lower amount of special needs stu…

"I suspect Salt Lake City has a much lower amount of special needs students."

Why do you suspect that?

I'm not sure of your overall point, but are you implying it's bad to spend more on special needs students?

Re: How Utah Keeps the American Dream Alive

#12

Post by alexanderson »

As a Utahn, the most disappointing thing about this article is the racial homogeny. It's true - nearly everyone is white. But that doesn't mean that there isn't some diversity. When my father was a Mormon bishop, he would dole out orders for the Bishop's Storehouse to everyone just the same, whether they were white, black, Latino, or Asian - Made no difference to him. They got the same food, but also had to live by the same requirements - coming to church and serving in the community.

I recall one day after my dad was diagnosed with cancer. Out of the blue one of those families my dad had prepared an order for brought over a casserole for our family out of gratitude for what he did - not only for the food, but for helping him get back in their feet. And this was one of the latinix families.

My point is that I wish there were data on what this experiment would be like with the racial diversity of NYC, DC, or elsewhere. While there are Mormon congregations in these places, with the same bishops storehouses, they aren't nearly as pervasive in their communities as In Utah, so it's hard to see the effects of their efforts.

Re: How Utah Keeps the American Dream Alive

#13

Post by masklinn »

davidf18 wrote: post #4

The $20K per year per pupil that NYC (and other large cities) spends is skewed because of the enormous costs of special education. I don't know the numbers for NYC, but from an article I saw about Philly: cost to educate non-special need child: $10K, moderately special need: (7% of students) $20K, severe special need: (another 7% of students) $40K. I suspect Salt Lake City has a much lower amount of special needs stu…

> I suspect Salt Lake City has a much lower amount of special needs students.

But one could assume the ratio stays the same, and thus so does the average (modulo the notes of other commenters e.g. cost of living).

That however might not be the case, for various reasons cultural (does one population tend to homeschool special needs children more?) and "technical" (do parents of special ed children go to big cities for treatment/infrastructure?).

Re: How Utah Keeps the American Dream Alive

#14

Post by alexanderson »

fovc wrote: post #2

Would love to see how much Utah residents end up spending on poverty efforts, including donations and taxes and volunteer time. I believe there are inefficiencies in the current system, but by and large poverty reduction costs money. Socially liberal, fiscally conservative may not be feasible when you do the math

My perspective is that the government can operate that way, but the church seems to be the opposite: socially conservative but fiscally liberal. Hence the emphasis on nuclear families as well as giving freely to the poor.

Re: How Utah Keeps the American Dream Alive

#15

Post by itchyjunk »

When I was first about to move to Utah, few years ago, lot of people asked me "why?" and told me a lot about a lot of things. Of course, I didn't even know who the Mormons were (I am not from USA originally). Most of what I heard was wrong. I've met Mormons who have asked me where I am from and not only know where that country is but spoke to me in my NATIVE tougue. I was very impressed.

The key word in the article is the Mormon Church and its not an exaggeration. They do a lot in a lot of different areas (as if helping is ingrained in their blood). I am not sure why Utah has such an odd reputation outside of the state. But I am sure its something to do with the history that I haven' cared to look too deeply into.

The downside of SLC is the smog though. You can feel the burn in your eyes some days. Also, the housing market seems to be booming here. I have seen so many housing complex start and finish and sell all the new houses in the last few years its amazing. I am not convinced it's planned out as best as it can be, though. SLC could do with more parks and trees inserted in some places.

Re: How Utah Keeps the American Dream Alive

#17

Post by Retric »

greeneggs wrote: post #5

> For a girl raised on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, Salt Lake City is a very weird place. I went to Utah precisely because it’s weird. More specifically, because economic data suggest that modest Salt Lake City, population 192,672, does something that the rest of us seem to be struggling with: It helps people move upward from poverty. By this criterion, should Salt Lake City be so weird to a New Yorker? Upward M…

Salt Lake City is not much better than NYC making the article very disingenuous. A map makes the trends more clear: https://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/07/25/the-complex-st...

The difference between good and average is not much, but the difference between average and bad is huge. The traditional 'south' is vastly worse of than most of the US.

PS: Further, when comparing NYC vs Midwest is what it means to be upwardly mobile. NYC the top 1% is vastly higher than the 1% in SLS.

Re: How Utah Keeps the American Dream Alive

#19

Post by DINKDINK »

greeneggs wrote: post #5

> For a girl raised on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, Salt Lake City is a very weird place. I went to Utah precisely because it’s weird. More specifically, because economic data suggest that modest Salt Lake City, population 192,672, does something that the rest of us seem to be struggling with: It helps people move upward from poverty. By this criterion, should Salt Lake City be so weird to a New Yorker? Upward M…

I wasn't able to glean it from the website (on mobile) but what method is used to distinguish between the phenomenon of "the income distribution of the generation living here now is more than the previous generation" vs "for this specific family, the children make more than the parents"

It's seems to me that if a government instituted policies that in effect make it so that poor people cannot survive given the other economic pressures (for example: restrictive new-housing permitting in SF) that that phenomenon could lead to a fallacious inference from "the income distribution of SF citizens has gone up!" to "this generation of SF citizens is earning more than their parents"

Additionally, how meaningful is it to a child that their income is ~10% higher than their parents if their cost of living has increased beyond that. Essentially all the surplus has been consumed.

Edit: it seems that the intergenerarional method is potentially sound

"Linking Children to Parents Parent(s) defined as first person(s) who claim child as a dependent Most children are linked to parents based on tax returns in 1996 We link approximately 95% of children to parents"

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