Last year, Utah lawmakers passed a bill that requires the state Department of Workforce Services to create a system to track intergenerational poverty data to identify at-risk children.
The report found that 364,822 people live in poverty in Utah, about 13.2 percent of the state's population. Children in poverty number 136,751 or almost 16 percent of the state's child population.A newly established commission would include the executive directors of the state departments of Workforce Services, Health, Human Services, the state superintendent of public instruction, the state juvenile court administrator or their designees, and a nonvoting chairman.
Initially, some lawmakers were skeptical of Reid's vision for addressing intergenerational poverty. But as the data have become available, Reid's focus on children has garnered greater support among his legislative colleagues, he said. Deseret News
