Rural Rocky Ford in Colorado is a long way off, economically and physically, from Denver. Brennan Linsley/AP






Below are some key themes that emerge:

This group isn’t monolithic

The Census defines “rural” as anything that exists outside of “urban clusters” with upwards of 2,500 residents or “urban areas” with 50,000 or more.

Around 78 percent of residents in these areas identify as white. The remaining segment contains a mix of races and ethnicities—Native Americans, African Americans in the South, and Mexicans near the US.-Mexico border, along with seasonal workers from other parts of Latin America. Some rural counties in Texas, North Carolina, Idaho, and Kansas have large concentration of immigrants. In Gaines County, Texas, for example, foreign-born residents make up 24 percent of the population. What’s often overlooked is that these sub-groups have their own set of economic and social challenges that are seldom discussed in the larger conversation about rural neglect.

They’re not farmers

Only nine percent of rural workers are in agriculture, while 12 percent work in manufacturing, A larger share work at schools, hospitals, or in someone’s home as a caregivers—not on the farm. Some 22 percent are employed in the education and health services industry.

Most live in the East, not the West or Midwest

Sixty percent of the rural population lives east of the Mississippi, and almost half lives in the South. The most rural states aren’t lonely and lightly populated Alaska or Wyoming but two New England states: Vermont and Maine.

The map below shows the concentration of rural residents in each state:

(The Census Bureau)

Economically, rural America is complicated

Overall, rural families are earning as much as urban ones. Median household income in the country is $52,386, compared to $54,296 for city families. But rural poverty levels are lower—only 13.3 percent compared to 16 percent in cities.

Under this broad pattern, however, there are some regional discrepancies. In the Northeast and Midwest, for example, the earnings tally flips: A rural family is likely to make more in median income than an urban one.

Homeownership is higher

In America, owning a home has long been the primary way to build wealth. And in that regard, rural America is set, with a homeownership rate of 81 percent. Urban areas only have a 60 percent homeownership rate.

It’s cheaper to buy a home far away from the city, where the national affordability crisis is amplified. But there are also demographic forces behind this. Rural Americans skew older (with a median age of 51, compared to 45 years for city folks), and older people are more likely to be able to afford a house. So are married households, and the countryside is chock full of those. Rural America is also whiter than regular America. And it’s well-known that the barriers to homeownership have historically been and continue to be lower for this segment of the population.

Below is a breakdown of homeownership rates for completely rural counties (with 100 percent of the population living in rural areas), mostly rural counties (50 to 99 percent) and mostly urban (less than 50 percent) ones. The deeper red the county, the higher its share of residents who own homes:

In a blog post, Census researchers write that “the rural population is not the same everywhere except in its distinction of not being urban.” There, in what’s supposed to be a technical definition of “rural,” lies an unintended political statement: Whatever the city is, the country is not. But as the data suggests, that’s more a perception than reality.

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