Rural Poverty In Rural America

In President Trump’s 2017 inaugural speech, he declared, “The forgotten men and women of our country [the United States of America] will be forgotten no longer,” (Trump, 2017) but who are the forgotten Americans? Former Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack may have an answer; “I just sometimes think rural America is a forgotten place” (Vilsack, 2016). This might explain Trump’s victory in the Electoral College, as the many of the states he won were in the predominantly rural Midwest. Evidently, rural America was seeking someone to solve the issue of rural poverty.
The causes of rural poverty are apparent today, but rural poverty has been in a similar situation for decades. In fact, according to Vilsack, “90 percent of the persistent poverty counties are located in rural America” (Vilsack, 2011). One reason is that the average salary of the rural employee has been consistently lower than the average salary of an urban worker. In fact,
One major repercussion of rural poverty is the lack of higher education. In 2015, 41 percent of urban adults had a college degree (whether it was an associate’s, bachelor’s, or higher) compared to 28 percent of rural adults. This reduction of higher education only leads to a negative feedback cycle in which lack of higher education leads to lack of development in rural communities . Rural communities also lack a wider access to healthcare, despite a higher percentage of people covered by Medicaid compared to their urban counterparts (cite source). Moreover, perhaps because of the lack of economic opportunities, rural areas have approximately 13.1 doctors per 10,000 people compared to 31.2 doctors per 10,000 people in urban neighborhoods (cite source). This has led to numerous health issues, including obesity, smoking, and opioid usage. Opioid usage, in particular, has been a more prevalent concern in recent years