Category: Publication
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Public Perceptions of Environmental Management in the Puget Sound Region Using data from a phone survey of 1,980 Puget Sound residents conducted in 2012, this fact sheet describes public perceptions of different environmental interventions. Puget Sound residents widely support a range of proposed interventions designed to protect and restore the marine environment.
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Community, Environment, and Climate Change | Community, Environment, Public Opinion | Publication |
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Race, Class, and Community in a Southern Forest-Dependent Region Based on a Community and Environment in Rural America survey, this brief looks at four counties in Alabama. It finds blacks and whites have different outcomes in the community, despite expectations of regional stability and greater equality. Though they reported similar rates of social mobility, African Americans in the "Black Belt" of Alabama are disproportionately poorer and employed in lower-skill jobs than whites.
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Vulnerable Families Research Program | African Americans, Community, Public Opinion, Race, Rural | Publication |
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Rates of Public Health Insurance Coverage for Children Rise as Rates of Private Coverage Decline This brief uses data from the 2008, 2009, and 2010 American Community Survey to document changes in rates of children’s health insurance, between private and public. The authors report that, nationally, private health insurance for children decreased by just under 2 percentage points, while public health insurance increased by nearly 3 percentage points.
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Vulnerable Families Research Program | Children, Health Insurance | Publication |
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Rates of SNAP Receipt Stabilize or Drop in All Regions for First Time Since Great Recession From the beginning of the Great Recession in 2007 until 2012, receipt of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits grew steadily.1 Participation and funding rose to historic levels2 driven by the changing economy, intensified efforts to enroll eligible populations, and expanded benefits and eligibility via the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Throughout the recovery, SNAP has acted as an economic stimulus and part of a safety net for struggling families. In 2013, SNAP receipt fell slightly—a decline perhaps indicative of a slowly recovering economy. However, substantially more households still reported receiving SNAP benefits in 2013 than before the recession.3
Despite the declines in SNAP receipt in 2013, the program remains an important support for populations at risk for food insecurity and hunger. There is currently substantial disagreement about the future of SNAP funding. The president’s proposed budget for fiscal year 2016 made no substantial cuts to SNAP funding, and allotted additional funds to improving access to SNAP for seniors. By comparison, the budget resolution adopted by Congress cuts low- and moderate-income entitlements (outside of health care) by an average of one-third by 2025.4 If cuts to income security programs are applied across the board, the plan would cut $350 billion dollars over the next decade, from programs—like SNAP—that serve low income families. Although the proposed cuts are unlikely to be enacted in 2015, cuts will be debated and are likely to be a major component of the Farm Bill reauthorization debate, scheduled for 2018. Further, the impact of an earlier reduction in funding (November 2013) is not yet visible in most data, making it an important time to assess SNAP’s reach.5 This brief uses data from the American Community Survey to document rates of SNAP receipt in 2013, to track changes since the onset of the recession in 2007, and to monitor receipt by region and across rural places, suburbs, and cities. In addition, it examines levels of SNAP receipt among potentially vulnerable populations to determine how receipt has changed among these groups since the recession began.6
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Vulnerable Families Research Program | Family, Food Assistance, Safety Net | Publication |
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Reading Levels of Rural and Urban Third Graders Lag Behind Their Suburban Peers This brief examines the complex interplay of family, school, and place factors in the reading achievement levels of third grade students. Third grade reading achievement is critical to later academic and occupational success. Using data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, the authors report that suburban children realize greater gains in reading achievement from kindergarten to Grade 3 than their rural or urban counterparts. Rural students who were struggling readers at the beginning of kindergarten have lower average reading achievement in third grade than both urban and suburban students when children of the same socioeconomic status are compared. The differences in third grade reading achievement between rural and nonrural children who were low achievers in kindergarten most likely reflect different educational opportunities and school resources available to these children. The authors suggest that improved professional development opportunities for rural teachers may help narrow the differences in the third grade reading achievement of rural, urban, and suburban students who were struggling readers in kindergarten.
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Vulnerable Families Research Program | Children, Education, Rural, Urban | Publication |
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Recent Data Show Continued Growth in Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program Use This brief uses data from the American Community Survey to examine rates of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) receipt in 2011, with particular attention to changes since the onset of the recession, and to receipt by family composition, region, and place type (rural, suburban, and central city locations).
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Vulnerable Families Research Program | Family, Food Assistance, Poverty, Safety Net | Publication |
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Recent Data Suggest Rural America Is Growing Again After a Decade of Population Loss In this data snapshot, author Kenneth Johnson reports that after a decade of population loss, rural America gained population between 2020 and 2021 because migration gains offset a growing excess of deaths over births due to COVID-19.
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Demography | Demography, Migration, Mortality | Publication |
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Recent Demographic Trends Have Implications for Rural Health Care In this brief, Senior Demographer Kenneth Johnson reports that nonmetropolitan (rural) America gained population between April of 2020 and July of 2022. In the preceding decade, rural areas lost population, both because more people left rural areas than moved to them and because births just minimally exceeded deaths.
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COVID-19, Demography | Birth Rates, COVID-19, Demography, Migration, Mortality, Rural, Urban | Publication |
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Recessions Accelerate Trend of Wives as Breadwinners This brief, Recessions Accelerate Trend of Wives as Breadwinners, investigates the increased role employed wives played in family economic stability prior to, during, and in the two years after the Great Recession, and makes comparisons to the 1990-1991 and 2001 recessions.
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Vulnerable Families Research Program | Employment, Family, Gender, Income | Publication |
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Record Number of Children Covered by Health Insurance in 2011 Using data from the 2008 through 2011 American Community Survey, this brief describes rates of children’s health insurance coverage nationally, by region, and place type (that is, rural, suburban, and central city). In addition, it details the composition of coverage in the United States, specifically the proportion of children covered by private and public insurance.
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Vulnerable Families Research Program | Children, Health | Publication |
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Red Rural, Blue Rural Political commentators routinely treat rural America as an undifferentiated bastion of strength for Republicans. In fact, rural America is a deceptively simple term describing a diverse collection of places encompassing nearly 75 percent of the U.S. land area and 50 million people. Voting trends in this vast area are far from monolithic. Republican presidential candidates have generally done well in rural America, but there are important enclaves of Democratic strength there as well. In “battleground” states, these rural differences may have a significant impact on tightly contested elections.
Rural Is Red With Pockets of Blue
The political divisions between urban and rural America are well documented. Democrats count on a strong performance in cities to offset a poor performance outside of them. The political divisions within rural America are less well understood. The growing political diversity of rural America is evident when counties dominated by the old and new rural economy are compared. For instance, voters who reside in areas dominated by the “old rural economy,” exemplified by farming, strongly favor Republican presidential candidates. In contrast, rural areas dominated by the “new rural economy,” based on recreation, amenities, and services, have become critical pockets of strength for Democratic presidential candidates. These partisan differences remain even after controlling for demographic factors and the North–South split.
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Demography | Demography, Politics and Elections, Rural | Publication |
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Regional Young Child Poverty in 2008: Rural Midwest Sees Increased Poverty, While Urban Northeast Rates Decrease In 2008, America's recession affected poverty rates for children under age 6 unevenly, with rates in the rural Midwest rising significantly, while rates in northeastern central cities fell slightly. And in the rural South, where more than 30 percent of young children are poor, poverty rates for young children persisted at a very high rate. This is an analysis of American Community Survey data released by the U.S. Census Bureau.
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Vulnerable Families Research Program | Children, Poverty, Rural, Urban | Publication |
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Related Foster Parents Less Likely to Receive Support Services Compared With Nonrelative Foster Parents This brief identifies gaps in support services among foster parents using data from a nationally representative survey of children involved in the child welfare system (the second National Survey of Child and Adolescent Well-Being).
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Vulnerable Families Research Program | Family, Health, Safety Net | Publication |
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Reliance on Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program Continued to Rise Post-Recession This brief uses data from the 2007, 2009, and 2010 American Community Survey to provide an up-to-date look at changes in SNAP receipt over the course of the recession. The author reports that receipt of SNAP continued to rise in 2010, increasing 4 percentage points since the recession began in 2007, and 1.6 percentage points since 2009.
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Vulnerable Families Research Program | Food Assistance, Safety Net | Publication |
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Religion, Politics, and the Environment in Rural America Reflecting the heterogeneous nature of rural America, rural Americans are divided primarily along religious lines on their perspectives of environmental conservation and climate change. And as rural voters and environmental issues become key issues in the upcoming presidential election, this religious divide presents a challenge to political candidates.
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Community, Environment, and Climate Change | Environment, Politics and Elections, Public Opinion, Religion, Rural | Publication |
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Renters More Often Burdened by Housing Costs After Recession: Nearly Half of All Renters Spent Over 30 Percent of Income on Housing by 2010 This brief uses data from the 2007 and 2010 American Community Survey to document changes in the proportion of household income spent on rental costs (rent plus utilities) during the Great Recession, by region (Northeast, Midwest, South, and West) and place type (rural, suburban, or central city location).
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Vulnerable Families Research Program | Housing, Rural, Urban | Publication |
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Resident Ownership in New Hampshire's "Mobile Home Parks": A Report on Economic Outcomes (revised 2010) 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.
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Evaluation, New Hampshire | Economic Development, Housing, New Hampshire | Publication |
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Restraint and Seclusion of Students With a Disability Continue to Be Common in Some School Districts Patterns Remain Relatively Consistent Despite Recent Policy Changes In 2013, Carsey released a brief that analyzed rates of restraint and seclusion using a large, nationally representative data set of U.S. school districts. This brief, which analyzes a more comprehensive data set and the most current Civil Rights Data Collection, serves as a follow-up to the previous brief.
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Vulnerable Families Research Program | Education | Publication |
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Retaining Residents Is Important to New Hampshire’s Future In this brief, authors Kristine Bundschuh and Kenneth Johnson discuss the results of NH Granite State Polls conducted from 2010–2012 and 2018–2019 that asked a representative sample of over 3,300 established residents to share, in their own words, their top three reasons for staying in New Hampshire rather than moving to another state.
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Demography, New Hampshire | Demography, Economy, Employment, Family, Migration, New Hampshire | Publication |
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Rising Student Debt and the 2020 Election In this perspectives brief, authors James Kvaal and Jessica Thompson explore the challenge of college affordability and summarize the campaign proposals to address it.
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Education, Politics and Elections | Publication |