The economic recovery continues apace in America’s cities. Unfortunately,reports The Daily Yonder, the same can’t be said of rural America.
While median household incomes improved for metropolitan areas last year, they did not improve for rural Americans. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, average rural residents saw their wages remain flat or even fall a bit from 2014 to 2015.
During that period, urban dwellers saw their median income rise by an over seven percent. Meanwhile, median household income for rural Americans dropped by an estimated 2 percent, which was still within the margin of error. Rural numbers were some of the only estimates in the report that did not show a statistically significant gain. The absolute number of people living in poverty in rural America actually shrank from 2014 to 2015. But the percentage of people living in poverty climbed because the overall rural population declined.