With new figures showing that more Utahns are living in poverty, advocates gathered Saturday to discuss policies to help those growing ranks, including expanding Medicaid and maintaining low-cost mass transit.
Jennifer Hyvonen, with the Fourth Street Clinic, suggested healthcare is as important to the state’s economic development as the tax incentives Utah gives to companies to relocate here.
"For us, Medicaid expansion is an investment in Utah so we can have a strong economy, so people can continue to work, so people can pay taxes," said the external affairs director of the health care clinic that treats homeless Utahns.
As one of the speakers at the Ninth Annual People’s Summit on Poverty held in Salt Lake City, Hyvonen was preaching to the choir. The 50 or so attendees of the summit at Crossroads Urban Center work with low-income, disabled and minority Utahns.
Newly released data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s one-year American Community Survey found 13.5 percent of Utahns — and nearly 16 percent of children — lived in poverty last year. Poverty is defined as a family of four earning $22,350 or less in gross annual income. Salt Lake Tribune
Related story - Breaking the Cycle: Children of poverty become adults of poverty Deseret News
