Rural areas in the United States

Most rural counties are experiencing persistent population decline.[2]

Compared with households in urban areas, rural households had lower median household income ($52,386 compared with $54,296), lower median home values ($151,300 compared with $190,900), and lower monthly housing costs for households paying a mortgage ($1,271 compared with $1,561). A higher percentage owned their housing units “free and clear,” with no mortgage or loan (44.0 percent compared with 32.3 percent).[1]

States with the highest median household incomes in rural areas were Connecticut ($93,382) and New Jersey ($92,972) (not statistically different from each other). The state with the lowest rural median household income was Mississippi ($40,200). Among rural areas, poverty rates varied from a low in Connecticut (4.6 percent) to a high in New Mexico (21.9 percent).[1]

About 13.4 million children under the age of 18 live in rural areas of the nation.[1]

Children in rural areas had lower rates of poverty than those in urban areas (18.9 percent compared with 22.3 percent), but more of them were uninsured (7.3 percent compared with 6.3 percent). A higher percentage of "own children" in rural areas lived in married-couple households (76.3 percent compared with 67.4 percent). ("Own children" includes never-married biological, step and adopted children of the couple).[1]

As of 2016, about 7 percent of homeless people in the United States live in rural areas, although some believe that this is an underestimate.[3]

Rural America was the center of the Populist movement of the United States in the 1890s. Since the 1930s, rural United States has largely been a stronghold for the Republican Party. The notable exception is Vermont, given its numerous Democrats elected to office in the 21st century.

There are significant health disparities between urban and rural areas of the United States. The per capita rate of primary care physicians is lower in rural areas of the country (65 primary care physicians per 100,000 rural Americans, compared to 105 primary care physicians for urban and suburban Americans).[4] Rural Americans are also more likely than other Americans to suffer from chronic health conditions such as diabetes, heart disease, and cancer.[4]

A study published in the journal JAMA Pediatrics in 2015 analyzed data on U.S. youth suicide rates from 1996 to 2010. It found that the rates of suicides for rural Americans aged 10 to 24 was almost double the rate among their urban counterparts. This was attributed to social isolation, greater availability of guns, and difficulty accessing healthcare.[5]

Notwithstanding the economic and health challenges, a 2018 survey of rural adults found a majority felt they were better off financially than their parents at the same age. They thought their children would also experience such improvement. Forty percent said their lives came out better than they expected.[6]

Grants Chapel, Bonnerdale, Arkansas

Two major official definitions are produced by the Census Bureau and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). The Census Bureau definition is given by census tract, and policy experts note that it classifies many suburban areas as rural. The OMB definition is by county and classifies some rural areas into metropolitan counties.[7][8]

The USDA has four different systems for defining rural areas: Frontier and Remote (FAR) Area Codes, which define rural areas in four levels of increasing remoteness by ZIP Code,[9] Rural–Urban Commuting Areas (RUCA), Urban Influence Codes (UICs), and Rural-Urban Continuum Codes (RUCC).[7][10]

The United States Department of Health and Human Services has two agencies that define rural areas. The Health Resources and Services Administration addresses the shortcomings of the Census Bureau, OMB, and RUCA definitions to produce a definition that is balanced between them.[8] The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services uses its own definition for setting Medicare payment rates.[7]

CityLab defines rural areas by congressional district, based on census tracts and a machine-learning algorithm.[11][12]

• Agriculture in the United States
• American frontier
• Rural Electrification Act
• Rural internet
• Rural letter carrier
• List of U.S. states by population density
• Medical Deserts in the United States

• Cynthia M. Duncan, Worlds Apart: Poverty and Politics in Rural America (2d ed.: Yale University Press, 2014).

• List of Rural Counties and Designated Eligible Census Tracts in Metropolitan Counties from the Office of Rural Health Policy