This post is part of the Science Tuesday feature series on the USDA blog. Check back each week as we showcase stories and news from USDA’s rich science and research portfolio.
In the recession of 2007-09 and its aftermath, some areas of the United States fared better than others. In rural America as a whole, the pace of economic recovery has been slow, with attendant impacts on rural residents. Each year, USDA’s Economic Research Service provides a snapshot of the rural economy in a brief report, Rural America at a Glance.
The 2014 report shows that in several major respects, recent trends in rural America parallel those in the Nation generally.
One common trend is a marked decline in unemployment over the last several years, from about 10 percent in the wake of the recession to just over 6 percent in mid-2014. Another is a significant drop in labor force participation, which reflects declining participation rates in the working-age population as well as the growing share of adults who have reached retirement age. In rural areas, this factor has played a larger role than employment growth in bringing down the unemployment rate.
Recent income and poverty trends, similar in rural and urban areas, have been less encouraging than the employment picture. The years 2007 to 2012 saw a decline of roughly 8 percent in median household income in both rural and urban areas. We also found the poverty rate unchanged from 2012 to 2013 in rural areas and nearly unchanged in urban areas.
But in other ways, the recent experience of rural America is distinct. Urban areas have seen moderate population increases since 2010, while rural America has experienced a slight population loss in each of the last 3 years. These differing population trends reflect rural areas’ relatively slow rates of natural increase (the small excess of birth rates over death rates) and the net outmigration of nearly 300,000 people from rural areas over 3 years. In parallel, employment in urban America rose by 5 percent from mid-2010 to mid-2014, and rural employment by just over 1 percent.
Rural areas also continue to lag urban areas in educational attainment, particularly in the proportion of the working-age population with at least a four-year college degree. This lag may contribute to rural population trends, as both rural and urban counties with relatively high proportions of college degree holders have experienced more population growth recently. And consistent with past trends, we find that earnings for those with college and advanced degrees are markedly lower in rural areas, creating a challenge for rural areas seeking to retain and attract more educated workers.
Read more about these and other trends in the 2014 edition of Rural America at a Glance.
