Public Policy
The Gardner Institute provides data-driven, context-specific insights about public policy in Utah. We prepare in-depth quantitative and qualitative studies on key Utah issues in partnership with private-sector stakeholders and state and local government. Our research provides vital information decision-makers and the public use to help Utah prosper.
2021 Utah Economic Report
Utah’s decade long expansion, the longest on record, ended in 2020 with the emergence of COVID-19. The public health crisis presented the greatest challenge to the Utah economy since the Great Recession.
2021 Economic Report to the Governor
The Utah Economic Report to the Governor serves as the preeminent source for data, research, and analysis about the Utah economy. This 2021 version marks 33 consecutive years of publication. The report provides timely and relevant data and analysis about economic indicators, as well as a focus on critical industries in the state of Utah. The improved economic understanding and literacy helps decision-makers make economically informed decisions and helps Utah to prosper.
2021 Economic Report to the Governor: Highlights
Utah’s decade long expansion, the longest on record, ended in 2020 with the emergence of COVID-19. The public health crisis presented the greatest challenge to the Utah economy since the Great Recession. In the early spring, the forecast for 2020 was bleak as the unemployment rate in April climbed to roughly 10%. But as the year unfolded, the resiliency of the Utah economy was on full display. By November, Utah’s year-over employment was down only 0.2%, the smallest employment decline of any state, and the unemployment rate had dropped to 4.3%. Nationwide employment was down by 6.0%, and the unemployment[...]
Utah Informed: Visual Intellection for 2021
"You may not be interested in the virus, but the virus is interested in you.” This modified Leo Tolstoy quote summarizes much of 2020 and the start of 2021. COVID-19 came seemingly from out of nowhere and impacted every facet of our lives, livelihoods, and lifestyles.
The COVID-19 Economic Risk Index
Notwithstanding having one of the lowest unemployment rates in the country under COVID-19, unemployment in Utah since the beginning of the pandemic has been stark. In only six weeks, Utah’s unemployment rate jumped from a historic low of 2.5% to a historic high of 10.4%,1 with Utah residents filing over 130,000 unemployment insurance claims from mid-March through April.
COVID-19’s Impacts on Utah’s Oil & Gas Industry
At the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the oil and gas sector was caught unprepared for the global shock of diminished energy demand by shelter-in-place and stay-at-home policies. At the same time, two OPEC+ members battling for market share oversupplied global energy markets, creating an unanticipated energy supply shock and sending crude oil prices into a tailspin. These combined shocks threatened the viability of oil and gas companies lacking the robust balance sheets needed to remain solvent until normal market conditions return.
The Central Utah Project: Economic Impacts and Counterfactual
The Central Utah Project (CUP) is an extensive network of diversions, dams, reservoirs, tunnels, and pipelines delivering a portion of Utah’s allocation of Colorado River water to residents of Salt Lake, Utah, Wasatch, Duchesne, and Uintah counties. Federal appropriations began in 1958, under the direction of the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, and the project has been managed by the Central Utah Water Conservancy District. Through 2017, a total of $2.5 billion had been spent or appropriated to build and administer the system. The CUP currently delivers 151,160 acre-feet of municipal and industrial water annually to Salt Lake, Utah, Wasatch, and[...]
Insight: What’s on the Horizon for Health Care in 2021?
By: Laura Summers Note: The opinions expressed are those of the author alone and do not reflect an institutional position of the Gardner Institute. We hope the opinions shared contribute to the marketplace of ideas and help people as they formulate their own INFORMED DECISIONS™. I recently had an opportunity to sit down with a group of health care experts and ask them what they thought the key issues the state and Utah’s health care systems will be focusing on in 2021, besides COVID-19. I was thinking about health care issues that maybe got swept to the side in 2020[...]
Presentation: Early Childhood Mental Health in Utah
Early childhood mental health services address an important need in Utah. More data and collaboration in this area can help maximize health, opportunity, and public investment outcomes.
Early Childhood Mental Health in Utah
Early childhood mental health services address an important need in Utah. More data and collaboration in this area can help maximize health, opportunity, and public investment outcomes.