Why This Journey, Now?
In a year marred by economic & social turmoil, Americans are re-evaluating a foundational tenet of the country: the ability to achieve the American Dream. Capitalism and neoliberalism are assailed as drivers of rising income inequality and uneven economic opportunity, the disparity in educational attainment has exacerbated a widening skills gap, and large enterprises turned record profits while small businesses grew destabilized by the economic response to the pandemic, experiencing ~100,000 closures across the nation in 2020. Simultaneously, the social fabric of the nation was further separated by a contentious presidential election which laid bare the hyperpolarization of the nation. While polarization is often viewed through the lens of ideological differences of political parties, a regional urban & rural divide provides greater context for the growing economic & social fracture in the nation.
General trends over the past decade demonstrate a clear difference in the economic opportunities urban & rural America. Average rural HHI is $35,171, while urban HHI is $49,515; rural employment has yet to achieve parity with pre-Great Recession level employment, while urban areas increased employment by ~9%; average annual net firm growth was roughly 0% in rural areas, compared to >40% in urban areas, post-Great Recession. Labor participation rate remains ~4 percentage points lower for prime-working age adults in rural areas vs. urban areas. As a result of the bleak economic opportunity in rural areas, rural America experienced a net migration loss compared to urban centers, contributing to a talent drain of the labor force in these rural centers. Rural centers continue to shift from manufacturing & agriculturally based economies towards service & healthcare industries, requiring a new set of skills to bridge the skills gap to these industries. Underpinning the loss of economic opportunity is a sentiment in rural America in which ~40% of rural Americans believe they do not have enough income to live the lifestyle they desire and won’t have enough in the foreseeable future, and ~42% believe job availability is a major concern.
Social divisions between rural & urban America run deeper than political ideologies, and include differences in demographics, community challenges, and perceptions of the other community type. A majority of urban counties are majority nonwhite compared to ~11% of rural counties; roughly one-third of adults in urban counties hold college degrees compared to 19% in rural counties; Americans aged 65+ are constituting a greater share of rural county population than urban county population, in part due to migration of youth towards urban counties. While young Americans may be more mobile across community types, rural Americans in aggregate report greater attachment to their community, and also remain in a community, mostly to live near family, compared to urban Americans. Comparable shares of rural & urban counties cite drug addiction is a major problem in communities, but rural Americans are more likely to identify health care and internet access as problems in communities compared to infrastructure, affordable housing and crime in urban centers. Despite majorities in rural & urban counties believing they understand the problems faced by the other community, even greater shares of rural & urban counties believe other communities do not understand the challenges they face.
With economic and social divisions appearing to reach their apex in 2020, it’s critical for people across the country to understand why a significant portion of their fellow Americans have suffered the brunt of economic devastation in the past decade, which in turn contributed to a different worldview. America is a nation progressed by people empowered to identify challenges & design solutions to enable the achievement of the American Dream for themselves and their communities. More importantly, America is progressed by people able to see the humanity in one another, and recognize the nation is stronger united than divided. This journey is meant to highlight this humanity, and identify ways for Americans to create opportunities to ride the next economic & social tides in the nation.
