Utah Upward
Author: Colin Frazier (QAMO ’25)
Publication Date: May, 2025.
The American Dream — the opportunity for one generation to rise higher than their parents — is in decline, according to research from Raj Chetty and Opportunity Insights. This distressing trend has prompted a search for ways to increase economic opportunity.
One potential pathway arises from a related finding of Chetty’s: that a child’s future economic outcomes are closely tied to the neighborhood in which they grow up, starting at a very young age. Children raised in better neighborhoods tend to achieve greater upward mobility as adults, have lower incarceration rates, and fewer teen births.
Unfortunately, too few low-income children grow up in high-opportunity neighborhoods. Housing affordability constraints often force low-income families into worse neighborhoods with fewer opportunities. Programs like the Housing Choice Voucher (HCV) program are designed to help families bridge the gap between income and rising rental costs by providing vouchers that can be used towards rent. In concept, voucher holders could use their vouchers to move into neighborhoods that offer better prospects for their children while paying the same amount of their income towards rent. Indeed, research shows that children who move from a higher- to lower-poverty neighborhood prior to age 13 are more likely to attend college, have higher long-term earnings, and are less likely to become single parents. [1] Outcomes improve for each additional year that a child spends in the high-opportunity area, meaning that moving early in childhood has the largest positive, long-term effects.
In practice, however, it is not clear whether HCV recipients use their vouchers to move to high-opportunity areas. They face several barriers including a lack of information about which areas are high-opportunity, a lack of affordable units in high-opportunity areas, a lack of support in moving to those high-opportunity areas, and long waitlist times. In Salt Lake County, the waiting list is 5-6 years for a HCV, meaning that families with children may not get vouchers until it is too late to realize gains from moving when the child is young. Over 3,500 families in Salt Lake County are supported by the HCV program yet only 72% report finding housing. [2]
Another key barrier is that HCV recipients may not know which areas are both high-opportunity areas and yet offer affordable rents — so-called “opportunity bargains.” To identify these areas in Salt Lake County, I combined census tract-level data on intergenerational mobility — specifically, Opportunity Insights’ mean household income percentile at age 35 for those growing up in low-income families [3] — with detailed median gross rent estimates from the U.S. Census American Community Survey (ACS) data. [4] I identify tracts that fall within the top 25% of mobility outcomes while also offering gross median rents fully covered by the HCV, the 40th percentile of rents in the county, and note them as opportunity bargains. These are places where families (and taxpayers sponsoring the vouchers) receive the most value for their investment.
Figure 1: Identifying Opportunity Bargains in Salt Lake County
Note: The figure shows household income percentile at age 35 and median gross rent for all census tracts within Salt Lake County. The vertical line represents the fair market rent from the Housing Authority of Salt Lake City [5]. Outcome data was obtained from Opportunity Insights [3] and rent data was obtained from the U.S. Census ACS [4].
Figure 1 demonstrates the positive association between upward mobility and rent throughout Salt Lake County. Areas in the top right of the figure are high opportunity, high rent areas. Areas in the bottom left of the graph are low-opportunity, low rent areas. While this pattern might seem natural — high-opportunity areas may be more desirable and thus more expensive — it also illustrates the barriers that lower-income families face trying to raise their children in areas that provide upward mobility. The red tracts in the top left of Figure 1 have low rents and high upward mobility, representing the opportunity bargains amongst all tracts in Salt Lake. In these neighborhoods, rent is covered by the HCV and upward mobility is in the top 25% of tracts in Salt Lake County. The red line indicates the amount of rent that the HCV will cover, which is the 2-bedroom fair market rent of approximately $1,500.
The 14 opportunity bargain neighborhoods are named in Figure 2. Eleven of the 14 tracts are located on the east side of Salt Lake and all have gross rents under $1500.
Figure 2: Opportunity Bargains in Salt Lake County.
Note: The bar graph displays highlighted opportunity bargains, their neighborhood names, and household income percentile at age 35 compared to the Salt Lake County average. Outcome data was obtained from Opportunity Insights [3].
The income percentiles of Salt Lake County’s opportunity neighborhoods range from 61.6% to 52.5%, outperforming the county average of 47.5%.
Beyond economic outcomes, children with low-income parents who grew up in the above neighborhoods have some of the lowest incarceration rates in Salt Lake County (all below 2%) and higher than average marriage rates compared to other tracts in Salt Lake City. Data from the Social Capital Atlas also displays higher economic connectedness in these areas. Children from low-income families have greater shares of high-income friends within the above tracts leading to greater access to social capital and stronger economic outcomes than those in other communities around Salt Lake.
By moving to neighborhoods with less poverty, young children in low-income families develop social capital and connections, achieve greater education success through peer influence and school quality, and better economic success through employment and income.
Unfortunately, this analysis reveals a significant disconnect: none of the census tracts that are opportunity bargains attract voucher holders. Figure 3 illustrates this stark contrast with opportunity bargains highlighted in red and the 25 census tracts with the highest concentration of voucher holders in gray.
Figure 3: Voucher Holders Do Not Reside in High Opportunity Areas.
Note: The map shows highlighted opportunity bargains and contrasts them to tracts with the highest concentration of HCV holders. Outcome data was obtained from Opportunity Insights [3].
Notably, none of the top HCV tracts are the same as the opportunity bargain tracts. This mismatch between voucher usage and opportunity suggests that families receiving housing vouchers are not benefiting from the potential opportunity gains that could be achieved by relocating to these higher-opportunity, lower-cost neighborhoods. For example, there are areas in which families could move even just one or two census tracts away (e.g., Cottonwood Heights and Daybreak) to achieve opportunity gains. By moving from the high HCV tract to the opportunity bargain tract in Cottonwood Heights or Daybreak, the children of voucher recipients would grow up in an area where the average household income at age 35 is $8,000 higher, representing a large increase in upward mobility.
Why are voucher holders not using vouchers in high-opportunity areas? Due to unavailability and limited program acceptance, the existing mismatch between voucher usage and upward mobility underscores the need for policies that can better connect voucher holders with neighborhoods that put tax dollars towards creating better outcomes for children while maintaining affordability.
Enhancing mobility counseling for voucher recipients could improve awareness of neighborhood opportunities and reduce barriers in the housing search [6]. Additionally, landlord incentivization in high-opportunity tracts, through streamlined certification processes or education on rental guarantees, can pave the way for a more equitable distribution of voucher holders across high-opportunity areas.
Low-opportunity areas should also seek to replicate the success of high-opportunity areas through investment in educational quality, neighborhood revitalization programs, and furthering cross-class social interaction in their communities. Through replication and reductions in residential segregation, all areas can become high-opportunity areas.
Ultimately, better aligning housing assistance and investments with the insights from intergenerational mobility research can play a vital role in supporting families’ long-term economic success and uplifting disinvested communities.