President Obama said rural America is “moving in the right direction” after the 2008-09 recession and a long-running shift toward automation and globalization that “has, in many ways, hit rural communities particularly hard.” In an op-ed, the president saluted rural “resilience and ingenuity in the face of a challenge.”
The White House released the op-ed in advance of a day-long forum called by the White House Rural Council to discuss social and economic progress. The administration also opened the application period for grants to bring broadband to communities without service now, for funding to start or expand rural businesses, and for a variety of rural development grant and loan programs.
“Today, rural unemployment has dropped from a high of about 10 percent during the Great Recession to 6 percent. The rural child poverty rate is dropping, and rural median household incomes are rising again,” wrote the president.
The op-ed described efforts to improve the rural economy, such as worker retraining programs and upgrading schools, as well as the enduring traditions of honesty, responsibility, perseverance and respect for others. “A lot of what’s shaped me came from my grandparents who grew up on the prairie in Kansas,” said Obama.
Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has a huge lead over Democrat Hillary Clinton in rural areas, 41 percent to 28 percent, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll in August. It is a political rule of thumb that rural voters are social and fiscal conservatives. Some of the states that Clinton hopes to win have large rural populations — 25 percent in Virginia and 34 percent in North Carolina.
“Clinton is not expected to win the rural vote but she must keep Trump from out-performing her by large numbers,” said Reuters. Conversely, Trump needs to roll up rural votes to offset Clinton’s advantage among urban voters. Together, that makes small-town and rural America a potentially crucial sector in the race for the White House, said Reuters.