A Changing Rural Landscape--And Persistent Poverty
The picture of poverty is grim in rural America. The poverty rate in rural areas is 14 percent—2 percent higher than in urban areas. The number is even higher for child poverty: 20 percent, compared to 17 percent in urban areas. Nearly 400 counties across the United States have experienced poverty rates of more than 20 percent for the past 30 years. Nine out of 10 of these “persistent poverty” counties are rural. Unemployment and underemployment rates are higher too, and rural America has higher concentrations of substandard housing.
Nationwide, more than 35 million Americans—including more than 12 million children—live in households that struggle to put food on the table. As with poverty, the food insecurity rate in rural areas is slightly higher, 12 percent compared to 11 percent nationally.
The landscape of rural America is quite different now than during the 1930s, when direct government support for farmers began, yet the farm bill has not kept pace with changing times. Less than 2 percent of the U.S. population is currently engaged in farming, compared to 21 percent in the 1930s. A full quarter of the population lived on farms then. Today the vast majority of rural residents work in non-farm jobs, such as retail service or factory work. Many farmers, in fact, take second jobs off the farm. Roughly the same amount of farmland is being used, but the farms themselves have grown larger, more specialized and more corporate. Federal farm policy has not kept pace with changes in the farm sector or with changes in rural America.
