WASHINGTON, Jan. 20, 2016 - So what does rural
America look like once you open the hatch and take a look under the hood?
USDA’s Economic Research Service (ERS) held a webcast last week to highlight
findings from its 2015
"Rural America at a Glance" report, which confirms what most
rural residents already know well: Many rural areas continue to experience
population loss, higher poverty rates, and lower educational attainment than
urban areas. Here are some highlights:
Employment: The report, released late last
year, found rural employment grew 1 percent from mid-2014 to mid-2015 –
significantly higher than in the previous year, but still 3.2 percent lower
than in 2007, before the Great Recession.
During the same period in urban America,
employment rose almost 2 percent and was above pre-recession levels – as it has
been for years now.
The rural unemployment rate has continued to
fall over the past five years, but at a pace slower than urban areas, the
report said.
ERS economist Lorin Kusman, the report’s lead
author, said that the farm industry downturn probably won’t have any
significant effects on rural communities because “farm employment, at this
point in history, is a modest share of rural employment” – around 6 percent.
Education: The proportion of rural adults with
at least a four-year college degree increased by 4 percentage points from 2000
through 2014 to 19 percent, while the proportion without a high school diploma
or GED declined by 9 percentage points to 15 percent.
Compared to urban areas, the proportion of
rural adults with four-year degrees is 13 percentage points lower. However, the
proportion of people with at least some college or with an associate’s degree rose
by 1 percentage point.
Educational attainment rates were
significantly lower among rural African Americans and Native Americans,
compared with whites. About 10 percent
of the latter two groups had earned a college or associate’s degree, while 20
percent of whites had those credentials.
Rural
child poverty rates were higher in counties with more high school dropouts, the
report found. Conversely, “improvements in rural educational attainment since
2000 have facilitated a decline in overall rural poverty and rural child
poverty.”
Population loss in 2 out of 3 rural counties: Rural
population declined by about 116,000 people between 2010 and 2014, with losses
of about 60,000 people from 2013 through 2014, the report found. In 2014, the
rural population stood at about 46 million – 15 percent of U.S. residents.
Nearly 700 rural counties experienced
population growth between 2010 and 2014, however, adding over 400,000 people.
Those counties were largely located in the Rocky Mountains, southern
Appalachia, or regions like the northern Great Plains. The 1,300 counties that
experienced population losses since 2010 were in areas dependent on farming,
manufacturing, or resource extraction.
Nearly 300 rural counties lost population
during 2010-14 because the net migration rate was higher than the birth rate. A
larger elderly population and the out-migration of young adults of childbearing
age in rural areas is largely responsible for this dynamic.
Rural poverty remains high: Economic recovery
in rural areas after the 2008 recession “has been modest” and “stagnant for
most rural groups,” the report found. Overall, the rural poverty rate was 18.1
percent in 2014 – higher than the national rate of 15.5 percent, and the urban
rate of 15.1. Child poverty continued to increase at the start of the recovery,
and by 2014, was at 25.2 percent. ERS suggests that rural child poverty rates
have continued to increase because of “falling income averages – especially
among families with children living below the poverty line – as well as changes
in family structures.”
In 2014, rural poverty rates were highest
among African Americans (36 percent) followed by Native Americans (33 percent),
Hispanics (27 percent), and whites (14 percent). Between 2007 and 2009, rural
poverty rates increased most for Hispanics (2.4 percentage points) and African
Americans (1.6 percentage points), although Hispanics were the only ethnic
group to have a lower poverty rate in 2014 than in 2007.
Single female-headed households with children
had the highest rates of poverty among family types. In 2014, 48.4 percent of
rural families headed by a woman with related children and no spouse present
were poor, when 6.7 percent of rural married-couple families were poor.
#30
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