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Yep, little kids and snow.
That's what Utah has more of than anyone else.
Utah has less of something else that surprised me. There's more after the Halfpipe.
Utah has the lowest income inequality in the country.
More than any other Americans, Utahns live among neighbors whose incomes are similar to their own. The rich live with the rich, and the poor with the poor. But the overall range of Utahns’ household incomes is relatively narrow, too, with comparatively few who are exceptionally high- or low-income.
That’s according to a report released Wednesday by the U.S. Census Bureau looking at “neighborhood income inequality” between 2005 and 2009.
The state that is run by Republicans and whose residents think that Mitt Romney or Jon Huntsman would make a good president has low income inequality? Wait, what?
It shocked me, too.
But what can we learn from this? I was hoping that you could tell me. After all, New York has a high rate of income inequality. Certainly, the state that keeps electing Orrin Hatch to be senator can't be more progressive than New York?
The Republicans in Utah have decreed that we have a state income tax, unlike our neighbors in Wyoming and Nevada. So eliminating income taxes may not be the key to prosperity.
Our Bipolar weather drives some of our poor people to Arizona, California or Nevada. If Republicans sent your job to China, you might as well be poor in a place where you don't have to buy booze from the state monopoly and where the Easter Bunny can make his deliveries without tire chains and 4-wheel drive.
Maybe it's something I can't quite put my finger on?
This is a frozen desert. It's tough to "go it alone".
If you're rich; you realize that maybe you should hire a few extra people; even if they are temps. They may pay tithing to your church with the income they earn at your company. Or at the very least, they'll help you jumpstart your car in January when your Hummer's battery is dead.
Maybe it's just my Aspergers talking, but it seems to me that my employers here have hired more people than necessary. Maybe that's why our income inequality is lower?
Well, the bottom line is: I got nothing. Just like Real Salt Lake against Seattle on Saturday night. I'm as clueless about our sparking income inequality statistics as RSL's forwards will be against Sigi Schmidt's defense.