Utah has one of the lowest ratios of income inequality in the country, meaning the disparity between the rich and the poor is low.
The Economic Policy Institute released a report in June measuring the gap between the rich and everyone else, also known as income inequality. The report shows Summit County has the largest disparity of income inequality when compared with the rest of the state.
Mark Price, a labor economist, said the gap in income inequality in Summit County is most likely because of the ski resort community in Park City.
"The places that tend to have the most inequality, at least for the way we measured it, are places that have a large concentration of top executives," he said.
Although listed as having the greatest gap of income inequality, Summit County residents make double the average income as compared to the rest of the state. The average income of the top one percent is $4 million, but the average income of the bottom 99 percent is just shy of $100,000. And in comparison, the state of Utah's average income of the bottom 99 percent is $50,000.
"It’s clear that Summit County, in particular, just is much more affluent part of the state," he said.
Emery County has the lowest ratio of income inequality in Utah. There are only 20 counties in the entire nation that have a lower ratio than Emery County.
Price said Utah does so well when it comes to income inequality because the state recovered quickly from the 2008 recession.
“Over the course of the recovery, the bottom 99 percent have done pretty well in Utah,” he said. “They’ve captured almost 80 percent of income growth just over a short window, from 2009 to 2013.”
He said that is a reflection of the healthy economy in Utah.
“In the most recent period of the expansion, Utah has stood out in its ability to generate more income from a larger group of families,” Price said. “Which is a good thing assuming it holds up over the next few years."
Across the state, Price said the income inequality gap has doubled between 1979 and 2013, which is slightly better than the national trend. Despite Utah’s low income inequality, the state has kept up with the national trend, which shows the economy has not been generating enough income growth for the bottom 99 percent of income-earners.
“Even though Utah is a state that has a little less inequality than other states, even in Utah, there has been a rapid rise in the share of income being capture by the tiny fraction of families,” he said.
For every dollar of income growth in the state of Utah, the top one percent of families have captured 70 cents of every dollar, Price said.