After experiencing a decade of population loss, a recent report by USDA’s Economic Research Service (ERS) reveals that the trend and rate of persistent poverty are reversing.
ERS recently released “Rural America at a Glance,” focusing on trends in population, poverty rates, housing security and employment in nonmetropolitan regions of the U.S.
The report determined that in recent years, the shifts in rural America’s population, poverty and employment reveal three key findings. First, the rural population is experiencing growth after a decade of negative or stagnant rates, primarily fueled by domestic migration. Second, while rural poverty has generally decreased over the past 15 years, housing insecurity remains a concern for low-income renters, especially among American Indian, Alaska Native and Hispanic households. Lastly, rural employment has nearly fully rebounded from the COVID-19 pandemic, returning to modest annual growth rates comparable to pre-pandemic levels.
Population
ERS defines nonmetropolitan areas as a combination of open countryside, rural towns (with populations under 2,500), and urban areas ranging from 2,500-49,999 people that are independent of larger labor market areas (metropolitan areas).
According to the report, as of July 2022, the population in nonmetropolitan areas was 46 million, comprising 13.8% of the total U.S. population.
Over the period from mid-2020 to mid-2022, the nonmetropolitan population saw a growth of approximately a quarter percent, a growth phase following declining or near-zero annual growth rates between 2010 and 2020. The upswing was primarily attributed to gains in net domestic migration, surpassing natural declines resulting from more deaths than births during the same period.
“Fear of exposure to COVID-19 in metro areas and the subsequent increase in remote work contributed to a major shift in migration patterns,” the report said. “Net migration declined for metro areas and a mirror-image jump in nonmetro net migration occurred at the same time.”
While many nonmetropolitan counties experienced net domestic in-migration—especially those near large metro areas and in recreation and retirement destinations—42% of nonmetropolitan counties saw a decline in population due to net domestic out-migration.
Poverty and housing
Along with net migration, persistent poverty rates—poverty rates greater than or equal to 20%—experienced a slight decline.
The report noted that in the period ending in 2021, there were 318 persistent poverty counties (combining metro and nonmetro areas), a decrease from 353 counties in the period ending in 2011. Among these, 282 counties maintained persistent poverty status, while 36 counties entered into this category and 70 counties exited.
Nonmetro counties constituted 84.9% (270 counties) of the 318 persistently poor counties for the period ending in 2021. Within this, 244 counties remained persistently poor, 26 counties entered into persistent poverty status and 55 counties departed from it.
Along with poverty, the report looked at housing insecurity. The report defined housing insecurity as various housing-related issues that lead to instability in shelter, poverty and health concerns for individuals and families.
Between 2015 and 2019, over half of extremely low-income and one-quarter of very low-income nonmetropolitan renter households encountered housing issues. Additionally, nearly one-quarter of American Indian, Alaska Native or Hispanic (any race) nonmetropolitan households faced severe housing problems, a rate approximately 10 percentage points higher than that of all other racial groups.
Employment
“Jobs are a major contributor to rural household well-being,” the report said. “Following nonmetropolitan job losses of 10% in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, nonmetropolitan household employment rebounded in 2021 and continued to recover throughout 2022 and 2023.”
As of the first quarter of 2023, nonmetropolitan employment had nearly fully recovered, reaching 99% of pre-pandemic levels. In 2022, nonmetropolitan annual employment growth was 0.5%, returning to rates comparable to those observed in the years before the pandemic. Additionally, the nonmetropolitan unemployment rate decreased from 11.3% in 2020 to 3.8% in 2022.
The report noted that in 2021, over 243,000 jobs, accounting for 1% of total employment, were in the clean energy sector in nonmetropolitan counties. In contrast, approximately 239,000 jobs in nonmetropolitan areas were associated with coal, petroleum and natural gas fuels. The proportion of clean energy employment in nonmetropolitan regions varied among U.S. states, ranging from less than half a percent in Arizona to 2.6% in Vermont. Among all states, Texas had the highest number of clean energy jobs in nonmetropolitan counties. — Charles Wallace, WLJ contributing editor
