This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2016, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

Utah's economy is consistently hailed as one of the best in the nation. The state has been named the number one state for business five out of the last six years, according to Forbes, America's top economic outlook for the last five years in "Rich States, Poor States," has been ranked the third best for personal income growth, according to Pew Charitable Trusts, and been rated one of America's best places for upward economic mobility, according to The Equality of Opportunity Project (EOP) at Harvard University.

The important question is: why?

Low taxes, business-friendly regulations, reasonable labor laws and an industrious, well-educated workforce are commonly-cited reasons. But another variable is critically important, yet often overlooked: Utah's strong families.

It is vital that Utah's political, business and community leaders understand the economic importance of strong families. If that aspect is neglected, we could successfully boost spending on schools, build needed infrastructure, and avoid unnecessary taxes and regulation, and still have an economy that fails to foster continued prosperity or upward mobility for poor children.

New research illustrates the economic importance of the family. According to the report "Strong Families, Prosperous States," published by the American Enterprise Institute and the Institute for Family Studies, states with a higher number of families headed by married parents enjoy significantly better economic growth and mobility, higher median family incomes and less child poverty compared to states with more single and cohabiting-parent families. This study suggests one reason for Utah's economic prosperity is that so many of its families are headed by married parents. Utah leads the nation with 82 percent of children in the state living with married parents and nearly 70 percent of working-age adults being married.

Marriage matters, we think, because it often facilitates income pooling and motivates men to work harder, more strategically and more successfully to support their families. Marriage also seems to matter because children in married homes are more likely to acquire human capital — the skills, habits and values conducive to their success in school and, later in life, in the workplace.

Additional research recognizes the importance of the family to economic opportunity and mobility. The work of the EOP at Harvard shows that upward economic mobility is significantly higher for poor children raised in the Salt Lake City metro area compared to other major metro areas, in part, it would seem, because the area has more two-parent families than many other metro areas around the country. Additionally, scholars at the Brookings Institution report that marriage and married parenting are essential elements of the "success sequence" (putting education, work, marriage and parenthood in that order). This guide for life decisions, when followed, leads the vast majority of people into the middle class and protects them from falling into poverty.

What this scholarship suggests is that family formation should be prioritized right along with education and infrastructure investment, tax policy and business regulation if the goal is to sustain Utah's economic success. This will require leaders with courage, who are willing to confront the elements of popular and business culture that minimize the virtues and ideals that strong families require: commitment, fidelity, compromise and bearing and rearing children within marriage. Successful campaigns to reduce teen pregnancy involving leaders in civil society, business, pop culture and government – which have contributed to the more than 50 percent drop in teen pregnancy rate since 1990 – provide a model for the kinds of actions such leaders can support, and show how effective these actions can be.

For public policy, this points to the need for welfare programs that reinforce the "success sequence" of pursuing education, work, marriage and parenthood — in that order — instead of penalizing marriage and improved employment through tax penalties and so-called welfare cliffs. In other words, it means electing political leaders who are champions of welfare policies that encourage human flourishing and dignity by helping the poor embrace the success sequence.

These ideas will not be easy to implement — genuine solutions to important social problems never are. But they are among the ideas that are needed to lead the state to continued economic success. Most importantly, strengthening families in the Beehive State will help ensure that the people of Utah, present and future, have a better shot at lives of happiness, prosperity and opportunity, the best marks of a successful Utah economy.

Derek Monson is policy director at Sutherland Institute, a conservative think tank in Salt Lake City. W. Bradford Wilcox, Ph.D., is a sociologist at the University of Virginia and co-author of "Strong Families, Prosperous States: Do Healthy Families Affect the Wealth of States?"