The Hard Truths of Trying to 'Save' the Rural Economy

[elleng]

'Can rural America be saved?

There are 60 million people, almost one in five Americans, living on farms, in hamlets and in small towns across the landscape. For the last quarter century the story of these places has been one of relentless economic decline.

This is, of course, not news to the people who live in rural and small-town America, who have been fighting for years to reverse this decline. But now, the nation’s political class is finally noticing. The election of Donald Trump, powered in no small degree by rural voters, has brought the troubles of small-town America to national attention, with an urgent question: What can be done to revive it?

Rural America is getting old. The median age is 43, seven years older than city dwellers. Its productivity, defined as output per worker, is lower than urban America’s. Its families have lower incomes. And its share of the population is shrinking: the United States has grown by 75 million people since 1990, but this has mostly occurred in cities and suburbs. Rural areas have lost some 3 million people. Since the 1990s, problems such as crime and opioid abuse, once associated with urban areas, are increasingly rural phenomena. . .

These days, economic growth bypasses rural economies. In the first four years of the recovery after the 2008 recession, counties with fewer than 100,000 people lost 17,500 businesses, according to the Economic Innovation Group. By contrast, counties with more than 1 million residents added, altogether, 99,000 firms. By 2017, the largest metropolitan areas had almost 10 percent more jobs than they did at the start of the financial crisis. Rural areas still had fewer.

The Economic Innovation Group measures “distress” as a combination of data ranging from joblessness and poverty to abandoned homes and educational attainment. Since the 1990s, there has been an “intensifying ruralization of distress,” said John Lettieri, the group’s president. . .

In Comanche County, a land of cattle, farming, oil and gas on the plains of southwestern Kansas, 1,790 people live in a sparsely settled area of nearly 800 square miles. In Perry County — home to some 26,500 people in the Appalachian Mountains of Eastern Kentucky — so far no other industry has replaced once-mighty coal. Essex County in New York’s Adirondacks is three-quarters rural, by the census definition. So is Calaveras County in California.

After World War II, small town prosperity relied on its contribution to the industrial economy. The census considers Price County, Wis., to be 100 percent rural. Still, over a third of the jobs there are in manufacturing, from building industrial machines to assembling trucks. Auto parts manufacturers in West Point, Ga., draw workers from all over Troup County. Overall, manufacturing employs about one in eight workers in the country’s 704 entirely rural counties. That’s more than agriculture, forestry, fishing and mining combined and second only to education, health care and social assistance, which includes teachers, doctors, nurses and social service counselors. Most of those jobs are government funded.'>>>

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/12/14/opinion/rural-america-trump-decline.html?

[SWBTATTReg]

1. Good, thoughtful article on the divide between urban and rural economics. A lot of work still ...

remains and I don't see rump doing one bit to help the situation other than to concentrate and develop his own wealth by stealing it or pushing it via his illegal acts as president.

[UpInArms]

2. I remember when almost every small town had

The equivalent of a “scotch tape” factory ...

And vibrant town squares ...

Squalmart took over the mom and pop shops and shipped their crap in from China ...

I have watched the towns around me turn to dust.

[SallyHemmings]

3. I grew up in a small town in SE Pennsylvania

In the late 70's, the men worked at the steel mill, mushroom farms or a major chemical company. The women who worked outside of the home were in education or healthcare. Most managed their homes.

Long term employees were given packages when the steel mill and the chemical companies were acquired in the 90s. Both companies are owned by international companies.

My Dad was 58 years old and made decisions expecting to retire at 65 when he got his package.

It was brutal. He could not afford to retire. So he ended up working at another job making less money. He at least has a pension.

The mushroom workers were first replaced by women then Mexicans. No such packages.

Whether it was college, trade school, the military or getting a job, we knew leaving was the made sense.

Migrating to areas for work used to happen. It wasn't always comfortable but the move occurred. Waiting for the manufacturing jobs to return is tragic at this point.

Attending Trump rallies doesn't seem to provide networking opportunites for meaning work.

[cojoel]

4. we used to invest in national infrastructure

In the 1930s we invested in rural electrification, which made factories possible. We invested in rural telecommunications and transportation systems too.

Today we don't invest in anything. So much public infrastructure is in such bad shape. If we invested in infrastructure today (including rural infrastructure) then we could deploy better internet services across America, and then more business opportunities would be possible in those places.

Instead we give tax cuts to the rich...

[Farmer-Rick]

5. Around here, you use to work in the factories, saved, then moved on to college, better things

We had the fabric and cloth mills. The furniture factories attracted a lot of people too. Worse come to worse you could always find a job in the chemical factories. God those chemical plants smelled awful.

Now they are all gone. The mills went first, soon followed by the furniture factories. The RepubliCON Great Recession wiped out the chemical factories.

Now the biggest employer is Walmart and they pay crap so there is no saving and moving on........the young have to leave to find a living.

It's all about the jobs. That's what capitalism is supposed to bring......jobs. Not anymore. It only brings awful jobs that pay badly and that wont let you get ahead.