Voices for Utah Children Articles
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Today we are celebrating nine years of DACA by sharing more information about this program and HR6: The Dream and Promise Act. Who are Dreamers? Dreamers are immigrant youth, who entered the U.S. before their 18th birthday. This name comes from the...
- Type: Article
- Author: Abigail Pina & Ciriac Alvarez Valle
- Category: Updates & Blog
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Good News and Bad News for Utah in New Census Report on State Education Investment
On May 18, 2021, as it always does around this time of year, the US Census Bureau released its Annual Survey of School System Finances. This report is the authoritative source of state education finance data and rankings, including the one we are all...
- Type: Article
- Author: Matthew Weinstein
- Category: Updates & Blog
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American Rescue Plan: Now is the Time to Invest in Health Coverage, Care and Equity for All Kids!
Last week the Utah Legislature accepted $1.7 billion (yes, billion) in federal COVID relief funds through the American Rescue Plan Act. Legislators have stated plans to allocate these funds towards Utah’s biggest challenges and opportunities. As a...
- Type: Article
- Author: Ciriac Alvarez Valle
- Category: Updates & Blog
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American Rescue Plan: Let's Invest in Full Day Kindergarten and Pre-School Expansion!
Beginning this Summer 2021, Utah Local Education Agencies (LEAs) will be receiving approximately $615 million in Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Funds (ESSER) funds from the American Rescue Plan. Now is the time to use this funding to...
- Type: Article
- Author: Anna Thomas
- Category: Updates & Blog
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AMERICAN RESCUE PLAN: Let's Invest in Early Education!
Local education authorities, the state Office of Education, and the Office of Child Care have received hundreds of millions of dollars that can and should be spent to invest in what is best for Utah’s children. We must work together to put these...
- Type: Article
- Author: Anna Thomas
- Category: Updates & Blog
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Legislative leaders have said that 2021 should be “the year of the tax cut.” Numerous public opinion surveys show that Utahns disagree. This may come as a surprise to policymakers, who have been in the habit of handing out tax break after tax break for...
- Type: Article
- Author: Matthew Weinstein
- Category: Updates & Blog
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Detailed description of the 7 tax cut options in the survey above: * Refundable means that it’s like the federal EITC – you get the credit even if it’s larger than what you owe on your income taxes, in which case you get a rebate. Non-refundable means...
- Type: Article
- Author: Matthew Weinstein
- Category: Updates & Blog
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Analysis of Retirement Tax Credit Proposals Before the 2021 Utah Legislature
The Utah Legislature is considering including $40-$50 million of retiree tax credits in a package of tax cuts this session. But an important question has arisen as to whether these credits are actually designed properly to help the people that the...
- Type: Article
- Author: Matthew Weinstein
- Category: Updates & Blog
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Should 2021 Be "The Year of the Tax Cut"?
Snow on the mountains, inversions in the valleys, and talk of tax cuts at the Capitol: It must be January in Utah. Reports are accumulating that the state’s political leaders are looking to make 2021 “the year of the tax cut.” But, as always with...
- Type: Article
- Author: Matthew Weinstein
- Category: Updates & Blog
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Top Five Ways to Invest in Early Childhood
“The way we [invest in Utah] is by focusing on our kids, giving them the best opportunities, the best resources at the earliest possible time...to help them to live better, happier and less trauma-filled lives, while also saving taxpayer money by...
- Type: Article
- Author: Anna Thomas
- Category: Updates & Blog
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Children's Mental Health During COVID-19: What have we learned, where do we go from here?
“It feels like we’re in a game of battle ship… and we’re the ships” Recently, Voices for Utah Children hosted a virtual panel discussion on children’s mental health during COVID-19. Our panel of experts came from the University of Utah Neuropsychiatric...
- Type: Article
- Author: Jessie Mandle
- Category: Updates & Blog
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As Utahns return their ballots and engage with candidates, we want to make sure all Utahns are informed and understand where our future elected officials stand on issues central to Utah kids and families. Here are some questions we are asking- and will...
- Type: Article
- Author: Questions?
- Category: Updates & Blog
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New Data Finds Number of Utah Uninsured Children Increasing at Alarming Rate
Analysis shows 39% increase in the number of uninsured Utah children between 2016 and 2019 An estimated 82,000 Utah children were uninsured last year, a number that has increased by 39 percent since 2016, according to a new report released by the...
- Type: Article
- Author: Jessie Mandle
- Category: Updates & Blog
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Voices for Utah Children announces opposition to Constitutional Amendment G
(view this as a pdf here) The state's leading child research and advocacy organization Voices for Utah Children announced its opposition to Constitutional Amendment G in an online press conference today (Monday, October 5, 2020). Constitutional...
- Type: Article
- Author: Matthew Weinstein
- Category: Updates & Blog
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More Utah Children Lost Health Insurance in 2019, According to Latest National Survey Last week, the Census Bureau released its annual health insurance data from the American Community Survey (ACS). The alarming top line news is that children’s health...
- Type: Article
- Author: Ciriac Alvarez Valle
- Category: Updates & Blog
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My Internship Reflection | Liliana Tapia Bolanos
Utah’s Latinx Community Has Been Heavily Hit By the COVID-19 Pandemic and this is what it means to me. It is no question that the Latinx community has been hit heavily by the COVID-19 pandemic all over the nation. There is a fear that exists in the...
- Type: Article
- Author: Liliana Bolaños
- Category: Updates & Blog
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Great news, the Public Charge rule has been halted!
Great news, the Public Charge rule has been halted! Earlier this week, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York issued a new temporary injunction that bars the DHS Public Charge rule. What does this mean? It means that the Public...
- Type: Article
- Author: Ciriac Alvarez Valle
- Category: Updates & Blog
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Let's Just Say It: Child Care is School, and School is Child Care.
For years, advocates (like me) have avoided mentioning the fact – at least, in the presence of legislators – that Utah families rely on school not just for education, but also for reliable and high quality child care. Similarly, until very recently,...
- Type: Article
- Author: Anna Thomas
- Category: Updates & Blog
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Childhood Obesity, Social Determinants and COVID-19
Part 2 in a series on Utah's new KIDS COUNT childhood obesity indicator In the context of COVID-19, it is especially critical to highlight the underlying structural and systemic indicators behind Utah’s childhood obesity rates. The COVID-19 crisis has...
- Type: Article
- Author: Terry Haven
- Category: Updates & Blog
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Part 1 in a series on Utah's new KIDS COUNT childhood obesity indicator The annual KIDS COUNT report now includes a new measure of childhood obesity. This new indicator looks at the percent of teens ages 10 to 17 who are overweight or obese. Utah...
- Type: Article
- Author: Terry Haven
- Category: Updates & Blog
