Publications
September 21, 2006
Vermont enjoys higher-than-average workforce participation rates and the lowest unemployment in New England, but the state's wage levels remain well below regional standards and the workforce is aging, finds this issue brief prepared by the Carsey Institute in partnership with the Public Assets Institute of Vermont. The brief highlights trends related to the economic and labor force…
August 31, 2011
This brief discusses the sweeping impact the Great Recession has had on Americans, particularly men, single parents, young adults, and people with less education. Using data from the 2007 and 2010 Annual Social and Economic Supplement of the Current Population Survey, the authors report that unemployment is highest among men and among unmarried adults, regardless of place or parenting status.…
September 17, 2006
Since 1984, the New Hampshire Community Loan Fund has been helping residents of manufactured home communities purchase the land underneath their homes. Since then, homeowners have purchased 80 manufactured home communities and converted them into Resident Owned Communities (ROCs) in New Hampshire. These communities now include 4,200 homeowners.
September 6, 2011
In May and June of 2007, Carsey Institute researchers surveyed 1,000 randomly selected respondents from Kentucky’s Harlan and Letcher counties, and between November 2010 and January 2011, they returned to survey 1,020 different randomly selected respondents from the same counties. These two Kentucky counties provide a snapshot of perceptions of community and environmental change in a chronically…
July 5, 2006
This policy brief examines who is taking care of preschoolers of employed mothers in rural America. While most rural families choose home-based child care (such as relatives or informal nonrelated care providers), formal care (such as in day care centers) has positive benefits to a child's development. The brief recommends that programs are needed that either make formal care more affordable…
September 20, 2011
In 1996 welfare reform ushered in a new era in which cash assistance for poor parents became both temporary and conditional on activities to promote economic independence through work. Cash assistance from TANF relieves, but does not eliminate, poverty because benefit levels are far too low to lift families above the poverty threshold. These ameliorative effects are weaker in rural than urban…
July 1, 2006
A study by the Carsey Institute, based on U.S. Census Bureau data, found that in forty-one states, a higher percentage of rural children live in poverty than did in 2000. While the national poverty level in 2006 was relatively stagnant compared to 2005's poverty level, the situation is clearly becoming worse for rural kids.
September 22, 2011
American Community Survey (ACS) data released on September 22, 2011 allow for a detailed look at child poverty by state and place, adding to the understanding of the economic landscape described by the Current Population Survey (CPS) data released last week. While the CPS data are useful for providing a snapshot of poverty across the nation, the larger sample size of the ACS--three million…
June 15, 2006
Alcohol abuse exceeds illicit drug abuse in rural America and is a serious problem among rural youth, as highlighted here. The report also confirms that the abuse of stimulants, including methamphetamine, is high among certain rural populations, particularly among the rural unemployed.
September 27, 2011
As part of the Community and Environment in Rural America (CERA) project, researchers at the Carsey Institute surveyed 1,541 residents of the ten boroughs and unincorporated census areas in Southeast Alaska to better understand social and environmental change in the region and their implications for Alaskan community and families. The authors of this brief report that social problems in the…
April 1, 2006
Global economic competition and other factors have cost rural America 1.5 million jobs in the past six years. This brief analyzes job displacement figures from around the country between 1997 and 2003. The loss of rural jobs was particularly large in the manufacturing sector, and the rate of loss was higher in the rural Northeast than in the rest of rural America. The key causes fueling the trend…
March 15, 2006
This report examines the changing demographics of rural America and shows that the makeup of rural America is changing as certain regions grow with the migration of retirees and baby boomers into amenity-rich areas. At the same time, other places face economic uncertainty as younger residents continue to leave in search of more opportunities. Racial and ethnic diversity, meanwhile, continues to…
October 5, 2011
Place rebranding is gaining in popularity as cities and rural communities alike attempt to expand their revenue streams through innovative marketing strategies that seek to revitalize or create tourism destinations. These efforts tend to come about as part of an economic development strategy pursued by communities that have borne steep economic losses resulting from global economic restructuring…
January 15, 2006
Conventional wisdom and statistical evidence show Southerners to be considerably more conservative on social issues like gay marriage and abortion than others in the U.S. But in shifting one's vantage point from the aerial view of statistics to the streets of Elba, Alabama, the relationships among faith, politics and social values become far more nuanced and dynamic. In this Southern Baptist…
October 18, 2011
The authors of this brief examine child poverty rates using decennial census data from 1980, 1990, and 2000, as well as American Community Survey five-year estimates between 2005 and 2009, to identify those counties where child poverty has persisted. They find persistent child poverty in nearly twice as many U.S. counties as those that report high persistent poverty across all age groups. In all…
February 14, 2017
Like many rural communities across the United States, Southwestern Minnesota (hereafter SW Minnesota; see Box 1) has an aging population, evidenced by a growing share of seniors and a declining share of children and young adults, particularly among the non-Hispanic white population.1 As the population ages, it is also becoming more diverse, as racial-ethnic minority population is far younger, on…
February 2, 2017
Globally, 2016 was the warmest year on record, surpassing records set in 2015 and 2014,1 and each new record emphasizes the longer-term upward trend. Though not every place on Earth experienced warming effects last year, they were quite evident in many areas. Rising South Pacific sea temperatures caused the largest die-off ever recorded of the coral that composes Australia’s Great Barrier Reef,…
January 31, 2017
Americans are killing themselves at an alarming rate. Nationwide, the mortality rate1, from drug poisoning, alcohol poisoning, and suicide increased by 52 percent between 2000 and 2014. Most of this increase was driven by a surge in prescription opioid and heroin overdoses, but overdoses from other drugs, suicides by means other than drugs, and alcohol-induced deaths also increased over this…
February 28, 2017
The federal Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) is one of the largest anti-poverty programs in the nation, offering tax credits to low- and moderate-earning families.1 The amount of EITC benefits varies by earnings and the number of dependent children in a family, with considerably more generous benefits going to families with children. In addition to the federal EITC, as of 2015, twenty-six states…
March 9, 2015
Public discourse on economics in the United States, and around the world, often focuses on rising income and wealth inequality. The “Occupy” movement drew great attention to the rising fortunes of the top one percent while middle- and lower-income Americans lost ground. Vast scholarly, political, and media attention is focused on issues of growing inequality and implications for broader societal…
