Rural America at a glance

Abstract

The U.S. rural population is growing again after a decade of overall population loss, with growth of approximately a quarter percent from 2020 to 2022. This growth occurred because rural in-migration was larger than declines in the natural rate (the number of births compared with the number of deaths) of population growth. The rural population is also experiencing declines in poverty. In 2021, 9.7 percent fewer nonmetropolitan counties experienced persistent poverty (20 percent or more of the population had poverty level household incomes in each of the last four decennial Census years) compared with a decade earlier. Still, more than half of extremely low-income nonmetropolitan renter households experienced housing insecurity. This issue was particularly acute for American Indian or Alaska Native and Hispanic households. This report examines recent issues such as rural population and migration trends, poverty, housing insecurity, employment, and clean energy jobs. The report finds that rural employment levels and annual growth rates nearly returned to those seen in the years prior to the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. Finally, highlighting an emerging employment area of interest, approximately 1 percent of nonmetropolitan workers hold clean energy jobs