What everyone should know about rural America ahead of the 2024 election

What is rural America?

There is no single official definition. Many people’s images of what it means to be “rural” are based on archetypes from the media or places they know. From a policy perspective, however, to be “rural” depends on how you define it—and the federal government defines rural in more than a dozen ways. 

The two most commonly used definitions are delineated by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), which uses population thresholds to distinguish between metropolitan and nonmetropolitan counties, and the Census Bureau, which uses housing and population density to distinguish between geographic areas that are urban and rural.  

Each metric paints a different picture of rural America. OMB classifies 13.8% of the country’s population, or 46 million people, as living in nonmetro counties. The Census Bureau classifies 20% of the country’s population, or 66.3 million people, as living in rural areas. That is a difference of more than 20 million people. Less than 45% of the Census rural population overlaps with the OMB non-metro population.

In truth, neither classification defines rural America in its own right: They actually define “metropolitan” (OMB) and “urban” (Census), and “the rest of America” is considered rural by default. The variety of definitions within the federal government not only confuses local leaders—one community might be eligible for some rural programs, but not others—but the different criteria often do not reflect local rural realities. Further references to rural in this brief will be based on the OMB non–metro classification, given its emphasis on open lands and small towns outside of metropolitan areas.

Move the map slider to the right to reveal rural America as defined by the Census Bureau, and move it to the left to reveal it as defined by OMB.

Isn’t rural just ‘small’ places?

No. Rural is often equated with “small,” but this can result in misapprehensions.  

Take, for example, the Lexington, Kentucky metropolitan area. In Fayette County, where the city of Lexington itself is located, President Biden received 59% of the votes and former President Trump 39% during the 2020 election. If you add the other five counties in the metropolitan statistical area, however—each classified as metro even though each county’s total population is less than 60,000 people—the votes break down as 51% for President Biden and 49% for former President Trump. Even if the towns in those counties are “small,” they are not technically considered rural. 

Small cities often seem “rural” in the popular imagination, particularly when they lack name recognition or are located in states where large portions of the geography are rural. Vice-presidential candidate J.D. Vance’s paternal roots are in Breathitt and Owsley counties in eastern Kentucky, and Tim Walz was born in West Point, Nebraska and grew up in Valentine, Nebraska: By every measure, all these places are rural. 

Yet Middletown, Ohio, the setting for “Hillbilly Elegy” and where Vance spent most of his childhood, is home to more than 50,000 people and is part of the Cincinnati metropolitan statistical area. Mankato, Minnesota, where Walz taught high school and helped coach the football team, is part of the Mankato-North Mankato metropolitan statistical area. The “rural” identity of the candidates is as much based on their experiences in smaller cities and metropolitan areas as their roots in places technically classified as rural.

Who lives in rural America?

Rural places are growing in racial and ethnic diversity. The non-Hispanic white population in rural America reported by the 2020 Census hovers just above 75%, compared to 58% of the overall U.S. population. The proportion of non-Hispanic white residents declined in rural places between 2010 and 2020, however, as the rural population of color grew from 21% to 24%.  

While the absolute number of people living in rural America declined in the 2020 Census for the first time ever, population gain in rural places is largely driven by increases in the Hispanic population, as evidenced in parts of the Midwest, Pacific Northwest, and Southeast. Nearly one-third of all children in rural areas are now part of a racial or ethnic minority. 

How are rural places faring economically?

The picture is mixed, but portions of rural America may be better off than the public perceives. Rural America is home to some of the most disadvantaged and some of the most advantaged places in the country.

Figure 2. Multidimensional index of deep disadvantages

Source: “The Injustice of Place: Uncovering the Legacy of Poverty in America” by Kathryn J. Edin, H. Luke Shaefer, Timothy J. Nelson.

Eighty-five percent of persistently poor counties¹ are rural, with nearly half of that aggregate population identifying as a racial or ethnic minority. In the modern era, rural America is the place where the dual burden of race and place manifests most acutely. 

Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, employment and labor rate participation in rural places had not recovered from the Great Recession to their pre-2008 levels—and have just returned to those levels, trailing urban areas by a year. Rural places comprise nearly half of the geographic areas in the country experiencing prime-age employment rates that are significantly lower than the national average. 

The rural affordable housing crisis is especially acute. More than 40% of rural renters are cost-burdened, and nearly one-third of rural counties saw home prices rise by at least 40% between 2020-2023 (compared to 18% of urban counties). 

At the same time, the rural workforce holds a proportionate share of the country’s so-called “good jobs (see Figure 3), and its blue-collar economy is strong, employing 31% of rural workers (versus 21% of urban) and offering opportunities for workers with lower levels of educational attainment.

States with large portions of rural regions are facing some of the most acute labor shortages in the nation, pointing to tight job markets and significant employment opportunities. Homeownership rates are higher in rural places, almost 84% compared to 58% in urban. 

Even some of the worst-off rural places are seeing improvements. The number of rural counties experiencing persistent poverty declined by nearly 10% in 2021 compared to a decade earlier. Among left-behind places, rural counties are outpacing their left-behind urban and suburban peers in the employment recovery from the pandemic. And despite the aforementioned downturn in rural population in the 2020 Census, data from 2022 indicates that the national rural population has grown slightly since.  

Over 99% of the wind farms and 74% of solar installations in the U.S. are located in rural places, as is the majority of mining, battery manufacturing, and regenerative agriculture. The growing investment in U.S. manufacturing since 2021, the drive to strengthen the resilience of supply chains, and the federal resources available for new infrastructure—including water, electricity, and broadband—all brighten the economic prospects of rural places. 

While the national narrative around rural America continues to be one of decline and even obsolescence, economic and political trends are converging to open up significant new opportunities—yet there is a lack of serious policy discourse on how to help rural places best maximize the moment.  

How can federal policy support rural places?

The federal government currently has no comprehensive rural economic policy or strategy. While policymakers often equate agriculture policy with rural policy, agriculture is responsible for just seven percent of the jobs in rural America. The Department of Agriculture hosts a Rural Development division (USDA-RD) with wide-ranging programs that finance rural infrastructure, community facilities, housing, and small businesses, but federal investment available for rural community and economic development extends far beyond that to more than 400 programs throughout 13 departments, 10 independent agencies, and over 50 offices and sub-agencies.

Figure 3. Federal development assistance for rural and tribal communities

Source: Brookings analysis of the 2019 Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance.

Navigating this maze successfully is challenging, given the requirements of application processes, reporting, and matching funds. In a 2019 survey, 59% of rural counties reported being under fiscal stress, making cost shares an immediate barrier, and many rural governments have limited staff and volunteer elected officials. In Michigan, just 15% of the smallest communities in the state felt very confident that they could both monitor grant opportunities and successfully apply. 

The Obama administration created a White House Rural Council in 2011 to attempt to better coordinate and improve access to this investment. It pursued the creation of a $10 billion fund to catalyze private investment for rural infrastructure development, as well as a smaller fund to support small business development in rural places, but did not report on their impact. 

Relief to farmers hit historic highs during the Trump administration, as it sought to mitigate the impact of its trade war with China, which is a major market for agricultural exports. The administration suggested a reorganization of the U.S. Department of Agriculture that would have dissolved the USDA-RD mission area, proposing significant cuts to USDA-RD’s programs and turning the position of undersecretary of rural development into a senior advisor to the secretary. Bipartisan congressional action denied the bulk of these proposals and kept USDA-RD intact. 

The 117th Congress passed major legislation—the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act of 2021 (IIJA), CHIPS and Science Act of 2022 (CHIPS), and Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 (IRA)—that set aside significant new resources. Within this legislation, our analysis catalogued more than $464 billion worth of investment that is highly significant to rural community and economic development. Yet just 2% of those appropriations are exclusively targeted to rural areas, which means they must vie against larger jurisdictions to access and secure the funding. 

The Biden administration appointed the first-ever special advisor for agriculture and rural policy at the Domestic Policy Council and launched the Rural Partners Network. This pilot program, active in 10 states, places federal staff in low-capacity rural communities to help them navigate federal resources, and created a Rural Prosperity Interagency Policy Council to improve federal coordination. The administration’s Interagency Working Group on Coal and Power Plant Communities and Economic Revitalization (IWG) created rapid response teams to do similar work with coal-impacted communities, most of which are rural. Rural areas have also benefited from new place-based programs such as the Build Back Better Regional Challenge, the Distressed Areas Recompete Pilot Program, and the Regional Technology and Innovation Hubs program. 

As the current Congress continues to work on the next iteration of the Farm Bill, the chair and ranking member of the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry, Senators Stabenow (D-Michigan) and Boozman (R-Arkansas), have both included a rural capacity building program in their frameworks for the bill. These build upon the Rural Partnership Program proposed in the Rural Partnership and Prosperity Act co-sponsored by Senators Casey (D-Pennsylvania) and Fischer (R-Nebraska), creating a new program to invest in the capacity of local rural partnerships to secure and manage investment for their economic future. 

Ahead of the presidential transition in January 2025, these recent evolutions in policy present an important foundation for any president-elect to build upon. Rural residents have lost trust that policymakers have their best interests at heart and believe their communities receive less than their fair share of federal resources. Recognizing this, policymakers are increasingly seeking ways to invest in the agency of local rural leaders and stakeholders to support locally designed solutions and projects as a key strategy for helping rural places thrive amid the economic and social shifts of the 21st century.