In our newsroom, it’s not one person’s job to know how the economy is affecting Utahns. It’s a team effort.
At least once a month, we bring in staffers from across our organization — from disparate beats and with different expertises — to talk about what they’ve been seeing and how those observations should shape our coverage.
We’ve discussed tariffs, high inflation and interest rates; stalling job markets and housing and child care costs. We talked a lot about uncertainty and fear.
We invited you into those conversations, too, in a series of surveys last year, asking: How are you feeding yourself or your family? What’s your experience looking for work? How are you getting by?
You answered the call. We received more than 120 responses in total — and I read them all.
You have been vulnerable with us about the financial trials you’re facing. Along the way, you’ve taught us — and maybe more specifically me — a lot about Utah. You’re scrappy. You’re industrious. You’re trying your best. Despite this, you told us, so many of you are having a hard time.
Even those who aren’t themselves struggling told us they know others are, like one Tooele County reader who said they hadn’t felt a squeeze buying groceries, “and, yeah, I feel a little guilty so donated to pay for school lunches.”
Many of you are working second jobs, and many others have been struggling to land just one — sending dozens, if not hundreds of job applications seemingly into the void. Others have turned to coupons, sales and food banks to cut costs on groceries. Lots told us they are no longer eating out. You’re relying on credit cards even more. Some of you told us you’d can’t afford to pay them down anymore.
When asked what you are doing differently to make ends meet, one reader simply told us: “Going without.”
In April, Renee Christensen told us that she and her family had “weathered the storm” in the past by opening their home to renters. Her son and his family had recently moved in as they weathered their own trials. When I checked back in the fall, Christensen, who has since come out of retirement to help support her family, invited me into their two-story White City home to see for myself.
It was cramped quarters, but in this economy, Christensen said they are getting by how they must — together.
“It has always taken money,” she said later in a text message, “to raise a family.”
(Francisco Kjolseth | The Salt Lake Tribune) Renee Christensen came out of retirement as a school bus driver to help her family.
While covering the Christsensen’s story with my colleague Megan Banta, we learned a fact that still shocks me: Research shows young adults are now more likely to have completed their education and landed a full-time job than they are to have lived away from their parents.
No one is immune, including Gov. Spencer Cox’s family. He and first lady Abby Cox were empty nesters after their youngest went to college. Not anymore.
“I’ll be darned if two months ago, two of our kids didn’t boomerang back into our basement,” Cox said in October while talking about housing at the 2025 Ivory Prize Summit.
If you’re wondering — no, I don’t still live with my parents. But at age 33, I don’t live alone either. I can’t afford to (or rather, I don’t want to stretch to afford it). I instead live with a roommate (a good friend I love immensely).
When we asked in November how readers are getting food on the table, many of you told us you’ve been better planning your meals to make sure ingredients stretch, using more coupons, opting for cheaper alternatives and eating out less.
One reader in Davis County, who is retired and gets by on Social Security benefits, summed it up this way: “Eating a lot of chicken stir fry because beef is out of touch. Who would have thought a head of Romaine would approach $5.”
When I talked to Brian Harris just before Thanksgiving, I learned that spending money on food was the only part of his family’s budget he could adjust right now, after his wife’s recent medical diagnoses forced her to quit her job and she lost health insurance.
Before 2025, his family had been fine under their high-deductible policy. Now, they’re spending about $1,600 every month just on insurance premiums. Not to mention their mortgage, other bills and out-of-pocket medical costs, like his wife’s surgery and ongoing treatment.
“We thought best case, this is temporary and she’ll recover from surgery and get back to work and everything will be fine,” Harris said.
But that didn’t happen. Harris told me they are “riding it out” the rest of this year and hoping that changing insurance policies next year will alleviate some of their costs.
In the meantime, he said, their financial situation feels as precarious as it did when they first got married, when they were mostly getting by on tips from his part-time restaurant job.
“We are objectively not as poor as we were back then,” he said, “but just the amount of care and precision that has to go into every purchase decision kind of feels the same.”
They’ve saved a lot, like so many others told us, by swapping beef for poultry — and eating “a lot less” of it, he said.
Harris added that his wife, Erin, sometimes volunteers at a food pantry and will bring home a few items. “Even just a few gallons of milk,” he told me, “helps to free up enough budget to pay for things like thrifted clothes for the kids.”
(Bethany Baker | The Salt Lake Tribune) People shop for produce at H Mart in West Jordan.
My experience is much different, but I am feeling the squeeze, too. My solution, like many readers, has so far been to spend more time and effort on meal planning, using coupons and sales to save money and my freezer to make meals last longer.
For lunch, as I was writing this column in December, I ate beef stew I cooked in October, froze and then later thawed. My Smith’s grocery app tells me I’ve saved $443 this year through coupons and sales. I’ve also gotten into the habit of saving onion skins, carrot peels and bones to make stock, and that feels like a free money hack.
Obviously, I’m employed, but we know that a lot of Utahns who want to be aren’t.
Nationally, the unemployment rate has increased to 4.6%, the highest its been in four years, The New York Times reported Dec. 16, when federal jobs data was released. At the same time, wage growth, The Times reported, slowed to 3.5% — the “slowest pace since before the pandemic” — as prices rise.
When we asked what your experience was looking for work, many said they are looking (and applying) but can’t land a job, or even get a call back. This is a sampling:
• “I apply to probably 50-100 places every month and so far I’ve gotten one job interview. I’ve been in Utah since January [2025]. This is getting ridiculous.”
• “It’s been the most frustrating and degrading thing I’ve ever gone through.”
• “I’ve been looking for steady employment for the better part of 18 months. The only success I’ve had is remote work out of state, or manual labor jobs where no high school education is required. What’s the point of a college degree and 15+ years of positive work experience if I can’t even get opportunities?”
• “Frustrating and depressing. I have been unemployed for 10 months with no end in sight. Hundreds of resumes have been submitted with little to no feedback or even acknowledgement.”
Already this year, we have a few stories on the horizon looking at employment in Utah, and we will continue reporting on economic conditions and how Utahns are facing them. Like last year, I expect we’ll keep enlisting your feedback to help us understand what is happening.
Thank you sincerely for what you’ve shared so far — and for all you’ll share in 2026. Your stories, I know, will help struggling Utahns feel less alone in what can so often be a lonely battle. Good luck out there. Please take care.
Like the Christensen family, let’s weather this storm together.