2023 ARCHBRIDGE INSTITUTE STUDY
Brice Wallace
Business Journal
If you want to climb the proverbial ladder, Utah has it ready for you.
Utah leads the nation in social mobility, boosted by business dynamism, parental engagement and stability, and charity, according to a report compiled by the Archbridge Institute. The 2023 Social Mobility Index also indicates areas where Utah could improve, including addressing education quality and freedom, and predatory state action.
Utah’s overall top ranking is followed by Minnesota, Montana, Delaware and Vermont. The bottom-ranked state is Louisiana.
“For residents, this translates to a better chance of moving up the social and economic ladder in Utah than in any other state,” Joseph Wirthlin, research analyst for the Economic Development Corporation of Utah, said on the EDCUtah website. “For businesses, this makes Utah an attractive location because it gives their workforce the best opportunity to live the American dream.”
The report defines social mobility as the opportunity to better oneself and those around them. While it commonly refers to a person’s ability to climb the income ladder and outearn the previous generation, social mobility is also concerned with achievement, aspirations, purpose and skills development, it said.
Among the four “pillars” evaluated in the study, Utah ranks:
- No. 4 for entrepreneurship and growth, including No. 2 for business dynamism, No. 10 for taxes and No. 27 for regulation. Business dynamism measures the entrepreneurial success and innovative nature of a state, while regulation refers to the number of regulations for individuals and firms, minimum wage laws that might restrict higher employment, residential land-use regulations, and barriers to employment such as licenses required to take on a job.
- No. 5 for education and skills development, including No. 3 for parent engagement and stability and No. 29 for education quality and freedom. Parent engagement and stability includes how often parents read to their children, how frequently a family shares a meal, parental attendance at their children’s activities, and the share of single-family homes. Education quality and freedom measures the quality of K-12 schools and higher education institutions, while also assessing how easy it is for parents to choose which school their children will attend.
- No. 8 for social capital, including No. 6 for charity and No. 13 for community activity and neighbors. Charity includes donations, volunteerism, the number of nonprofit or religious organizations, and the laws that regulate charities.
- No. 17 for institutions and rule of law, including No. 10 for judicial system quality and No. 27 for predatory state action. The last item refers to fines and fees collected by the state, public perception of corruption, and civil asset forfeiture, all of which can cause individuals to distrust their legal environment and dissuade them from pursuing quality-of-life improvements.
“While there is room for improvement in Utah’s social mobility, it should be noted that even Utah’s lower rankings just barely fall in the bottom half of all 50 states,” Wirthlin said. “Utah is not far from sitting in the top half for all subcategories.”
Other reports had similar findings to those in the Archbridge Institute index. EDCUtah noted that a 2014 study indicated that Salt Lake City had the highest score for intergenerational mobility out of the 50 largest community zones in the nation. Also, Utah has the nation’s second-lowest poverty rate (9 percent) and the lowest level of income inequality as measured by the Gini Index.
“Utah has proven to be a place where individuals can increase their income potential and also improve their overall standard of living and well-being,” Wirthlin said. “Utah is a place where people want to work, and where companies can have a meaningful impact on the lives of their employees and on the communities where they operate. Doing business in Utah not only makes financial and logistical sense for companies, it makes financial sense for employees, too.”
The study’s co-authors see the report as a springboard for change in the respective states.
“The first step toward reform is recognition of where we are today, and Archbridge’s new report will help policymakers — at all levels of government — understand social mobility like never before,” said Gonzalo Schwarz, president and CEO of the Archbridge Institute and co-author of social mobility report. “Defining social mobility based on four key pillars, our research team has spent many months analyzing all 50 U.S. states, identifying opportunities for growth in the best- and worst-performing states.”
Justin Callais, the report’s lead author, said the hope is that the study “will lead to positive, lasting change for millions of Americans. The time for reform is now.”
The report is available at https://www.archbridgeinstitute.org/social-mobility-in-the-50-states/.