The data comes from a report by the University of Utah’s Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute on Utahn’s purchasing power.
“A lot of times we think about income just at a really high level, it's money coming in. But as you start digging into the economic data, it turns out there are a bunch of different ways to measure that,” Kem C. Gardner Chief Economist Phil Dean said on KPCW's "Local News Hour."
So the University of Utah economists looked at income and adjusted it for cost of living. The result, they say, is that Utahns’ dollars go farther than residents in any other state.
The rosy outlook statewide might not hit home in the Wasatch Back though.
Summit County has the highest cost of living in Utah, at 111% of the national average. Wasatch County’s is the second-highest, a few percentage points below the national average.
Overall, Utah’s cost of living is lower in southern Utah, with the exceptions of Grand and Washington counties.
