Utah has highest rate of "Food Insecurity"
Child poverty rate up
Utah leads nation in bankruptcy

Excerpted from:
Salt Lake Tribune
11-24-03 B1

"Job growth reported in media, but where is it? Utahns wonder"

According to the Utah Department of Agriculture, Utah has the highest rate of "food insecurity"–a measure that reports the number of people who worry where there next meal is coming from–in the nation.

The US Census Bureau reports that the overall poverty rate in Utah jumped 1.1 percent between 2001 and 2002. Utah was one of eight states the Census Bureau found had a "significant change" in its poverty rate.

Movement of the state’s child poverty rate was even more staggering. In 2002, Utah’s child poverty rate jumped 4.3 percent, according to the Census Bureau. Only Massachusetts had a more dramatic increase in the number of children living in poverty…

Utah’s foreclosure rate is almost double that of the national average. The only alternative [for some people] to save their home is] filing for bankruptcy–another inauspicious category in which Utah leads the nation.