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- Of the 200 poorest counties in the United States, 189 are nonmetropolitan.
Read more facts - Minorities in rural areas have higher poverty rates than their urban counterparts: the rural African American and Hispanic poverty rates (30.2 percent and 25.4 percent, respectively) are more than twice the white poverty rate (12.5 percent).
Read more facts - Almost half of all African American children living in nonmetropolitan areas are poor; 43 percent of rural Native children are poor.
Read more facts - Low education levels still challenge much of rural America. Low-education counties—those in which 25 percent or more of 25- to 64-year olds have not completed high school—are concentrated in the South and Southwest.
Read more facts - Compared with their urban counterparts, high school graduates from rural areas are paid 13 percent less, but the gap widens to 23 percent for a comparable college graduate and 25 percent for those in rural areas with advanced degrees.
Read more facts - Less than 10 percent of rural people still live on farms, and only 14 percent of the rural workforce is employed in farming.
Read more facts - Nearly 30 million Americans (approximately 10 percent of the population) now live in micropolitan places.
Read more facts - Micropolitan communities contain 11.2 percent of the nation’s housing stock and have more than double the percentage of mobile homes than the nation as a whole. The average for micropolitan communities is 15 percent compared with 7.6 percent for the United States.
Read more facts - More than $50 billion in capital needs go unmet each year in Native communities in such vital sectors as infrastructure, community facilities, housing, and enterprise development.
Read more facts - The average percentage of American Indians living in poverty is 26 percent compared with 12 percent for the general population.
Read more facts - Public transportation is available in only 60 percent of rural counties.
Read more facts - Rural workers are 12 percent less likely than urban workers to have access to the Internet.
Read more facts - Of the 1,346 counties that saw their populations shrink between 2000 and 2007, 85 percent are outside metropolitan areas, and 59 percent rely heavily on farming, manufacturing, or mining.
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