Brookings calls for FEMA reforms to make disaster declaration, response easier for rural areas

   

Courtesy of the Library of Congress (Unsplash)

A recent analysis by the Brookings institution examines the challenges faced by rural communities after a disaster and makes recommendations for improvements in federal assistance. Rural counties were subject to a majority of major disaster declarations, the report said, while being home to just 14% of Americans.

The situation is complicated by a significant shortage of the same resources available to metropolitan areas. Small communities not only are financially strapped but lack the level of emergency preparedness and response necessary to recover. Often, responders serve in multiple roles in the community, like police, fire and ambulance services. Administrations have small staffs and lack experience dealing with complicated federal programs.

The report’s authors, Anthony F. Pipa and Julia Davatzes, point to other notable challenges. “The larger geographic areas of rural communities and lower population densities, for example, translate into longer evacuation times and longer distances for emergency personnel to travel to reach affected individuals. There are rural places that rely on a single egress or ingress route; if damaged, all transit to and from the community is interrupted.” Also, there are generally larger groups of the elderly and the disabled, along with a higher percentage of low-income residents.

In response to these needs, the report calls for reformation of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Pipa and Davatzes note that in the years between 2016 and 2025, “rural counties made up almost two-thirds” of those included in major U.S. disaster declarations. They make the following recommendations:

• Ensure new policies are implemented and will improve rural communities' ability to respond and recover from disasters;

• Update the disaster declaration process in consideration of rural assets;

• Adjust cost-share and reimbursement systems with rural capacities in mind;

• Provide additional technical assistance;

• Streamline grant and reporting requirements;

• Make sure rural areas have easy access to FEMA staff;

• Increase research and data transparency.

Entries for Best in Rural Writing Contest can be submitted by Sept. 1; fiction and nonfiction entries are encouraged

Entries for the 2026 Best in Rural Writing Contest can be submitted by Sept. 1 for a chance to win up to $500 and be considered for publication in a future Best in Rural Writing anthology. 

Submissions can be entered in the fiction and nonfiction categories, and can be up to 7,000 words. 

Submission information is available through the The Milk House, a rural writing collective that features stories, essays and poems on rural subjects.

"Contest submissions may be previously published, and will also be read within 3-4 months of submitting with an eye towards publication on the site (themilkhouse.org), as well as the forthcoming Best in Rural Writing print anthologies," according to the website.

The first place winner will receive $500, and second place will receive $200. 

If you have questions about entering the contest, please contact Ryan Dennis at RyanDennis@themilkhouse.org.

If Congress doesn't extend enhanced health care tax credits, 4 million rural Americans could face steep premium hikes

Average health care premium comparison before and after ACA credits for 10 'farm states.'
(Robert Woods Johnson Foundation graph)

Without the Affordable Care Act's enhanced tax credits, roughly four million rural Americans could see significant increases to their health care insurance premiums. Last year, the Health and Human Services reported that 17% of individuals who purchased insurance through the ACA marketplace were rural residents, reports Chris Clayton of Progressive Farmer.

While Washington lawmakers focus on eliminating programs that could use American tax dollars to pay for health insurance for illegal immigrants, "there is less talk about how much rural America relies on those tax credits," Clayton explains. "The tax credits have been a major driver for reducing the number of uninsured Americans."

In 2024, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation reviewed "enrollment of Medicaid and marketplace policies in ten 'farm states,'" Clayton reports. "In that study, eight states -- all but Iowa and Kentucky -- showed more than 5% of residents were enrolled in ACA marketplace policies."

Without ACA enhanced tax credits, health insurance premiums may be out of reach for many rural Americans. According to the article, an individual making $35,000, with enhanced tax credits, would pay a health care premium of $1,033 per year. Without ACA credits, the premium jumps to $2,615 annually, representing a $1,582 increase.

"Overall, the enhanced tax credits saved rural enrollees an average of $890 per year, about 28% more than their urban counterparts," Clayton reports.

Alaska's rural schools funding requests are often ignored, leaving children in crumbling schools

Some Alaskan schools are only accessible by air, boat
or dog sled. (Photo by Drew Dempsey, Unsplash)

Alaska is the largest state in America, more than twice the size of Texas. Most of Alaska’s school districts are located in hard-to-access places. 

Getting to these schools means travel by air, boat, dog sled or all-terrain vehicles, according to the University of Alaska. Some of these schools have fewer than 25 students.

“Just under half of Alaska’s rural schools are owned by the state, which is required by law to pay for construction and maintenance projects,” wrote Emily Schwing from Alaska’s KYUK in partnership with NPR and ProPublica. She said that every year Alaska’s rural schools put in more than 100 maintenance requests which are largely ignored.

Most of the students in the rural school districts are Alaska Native children. Schwing wrote that these Indigenous children suffer the greatest and are a population that has been “long forced to attend separate and unequal schools.”

Schwing reported that some Alaska Native parents sued the state in 1997. They argued that “the funding system violated Alaska’s constitution and the federal Civil Rights Act. State Superior Court Judge John Reese agreed.”

The judge wrote an order in 1999 saying, “Because of the funding system, rural schools are not getting the money they need to maintain their schools.

“Deficiencies include roofs falling in, no drinkable water, sewage backing up, and enrollment up to 187% of capacity. Some rural schools have been at the top of the priority list for a number of years, yet have received no funding.”

Even though it seemed like changes might be made in 1999, the article's investigation found, “Alaska’s education department has received 1,789 funding proposals from rural school districts since 1998. But only 14% of them have received funding. This year, requests from rural school districts to the state’s construction and maintenance program stand at $478 million.”

Rural elders are estimated to endure much more abuse than what is reported. Protecting them comes with speaking up.

Rural adults are less likely to report
abuse. (Photo by Danie Franco)

While research on elder abuse in rural areas may be limited, evidence shows that one in 10 elders report being abused. A report from the National Center on Elder Abuse said that for every report of abuse ”there are 24 incidents that may go unreported,” according to Liz Carey in an article for the Daily Yonder.

“Older adults living in rural and remote areas are at greater risk of abuse because of their geographic isolation, lack of support services, and poorer health,” Carey said.

These conditions may work to conceal abuse. Rural elders tend to have less education and fewer financial resources that could, “possibly [create] barriers to leaving abusive situations,” according to a Rural Health Research Center (RHRC) study quoted by Carey.

Alexis Swendener, co-author of the RHRC policy brief, told the Daily Yonder that it was difficult to know the scope of the problem. “Some of the laws are about vulnerable adults or dependent adults. Some of them have age defined in them and some of them don’t.”

The study looked at reports of emotional abuse, financial abuse, physical abuse, sexual abuse, neglect and self-neglect. Swendener told the Daily Yonder that sexual abuse and self-neglect were the least likely to be “clearly mentioned.”

Nels Holmgren, the director of Aging and Adult Services in Utah, said in an interview with the Daily Yonder that a key element to protecting elders is reporting. However, he also said due to a sense of independence and lack of services in rural areas, people are less likely to ask for help.

Opinion: People are getting married less often and having more children outside of marriage -- especially in rural areas

Rates for unmarried women and children out of
marriage are increasing. (photo by Thiago Cerqueira)

In an effort to prioritize "spending and infrastructure for communities with marriage and birth rates higher than the national average,” new guidelines from the Transportation Department have been issued by the Trump administration, according to a Washington Post opinion piece by Shelley Clark, a professor of sociology at McGill University, and Matthew Brooks, an assistant professor of sociology at Florida State University. 

Clark and Brooks said that the new guidelines would seem to be aimed toward Trump supporters in rural areas including “large traditional families.” However, their research shows that the appeal of having a large traditional family is not as popular as it once was. 

“Between 1988 and 2018, the proportion of rural women who were married fell from 55% to 33%… By 2018, rural women were more likely than urban women to be in an unmarried, cohabiting partnership (19% vs. 14%),” according to Clark and Brooks. They also said that the rates for women who have never been married has increased for both rural and urban women.

With the number of unmarried and divorced women rising, Clark and Brooks have tracked that the number of children born outside of marriage has also been on the rise. That is occurring at a time when the overall average number of children being born per woman has declined; and the number of rural children living with married parents has declined at twice the rate of urban children.

While Clark and Brooks said that rural transportation would be very beneficial due to the need to “travel greater distances to access necessities,” their research indicated “that using marriage and family size as the criteria for transportation funding is likely to disadvantage rural regions.”

“These rapid transformations in both marriage and non-marital childbearing help explain why many rural residents and politicians are inclined to think the traditional family is under threat,” according to Clark and Brooks. They also suggested that policies should be based on data about needs rather than “stereotypes about small-town family life.”

Some of rural Virginia is getting younger; three years of Census data supports a steady trend

This map shows where age 25-45 population has increased from
2020 to 2023. (Map by H. Lombard, from Census Bureau data)

As more younger people move into Virginia, communities that were once watching young people leave or avoid their regions are seeing population growth. "The net in-migration of younger adults has been significant enough that the median age has now fallen in 35 Virginia localities," reports Dwayne Yancey of Cardinal News. "Most of them are rural, and most of them are in Southwest and Southside."

A longitudinal review of U.S. Census data reveals who is moving in, and in this case, it's not retirees. "In much of rural Virginia, we’re seeing an increase in the number of young adults, part of what appears nationally to be a post-pandemic trend to move out of bigger cities," Yancey explains. Three years of data support this shift. "In 1980, there wasn’t much difference in the median ages among localities in Virginia. . . . By 2019, every locality had gotten older but. . .new data that shows since the 2020 census, some localities have gotten younger."

While the shift in numbers isn't huge, it's significant because the overall net shows a trend of younger people making rural Virginia home. Yancey reports, "Virtually every locality is seeing its 65 and older population grow. . . as the huge baby boom generation ages. . . [And] most places have seen their population of ages 25 to 45 grow. . . . working-age adults in the main years for getting married and having families. Overall, though, the state is gaining people in the 25-45 cohort; it’s just not gaining them in the biggest metros. Instead, they’re going to rural areas."

 These communities are getting younger.
(Map by H. Lombard, from Census Bureau data)

Rural Virginia is still aging and remains the oldest in the state; however, "The state's two biggest metro areas, Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads, are facing unprecedented demographic challenges that should concern all of us," Yancey adds. "Rural areas depend on our state's metro areas to generate the revenue that subsidizes rural schools, for instance. . . . Much of rural Virginia is now seeing a demographic renaissance." Danville and Martinsville, Virginia, were "given up for dead when textiles, tobacco and furniture collapsed," but have had surprising recoveries.

Working-age rural residents are dying at 'wildly higher rates' than their urban counterparts; cause is undetermined

Photo by M. Vistocco

U.S. mortality rates can fall into two very different camps -- rural working-age death rates and everyone else's death rate. "Rural Americans age 25 to 54 — considered the prime working-age population — are dying of natural causes such as chronic diseases and cancer at wildly higher rates than their age-group peers in urban areas, according to a new report from the Agriculture Department's Economic Research Service," reports Jazmin Orozco Rodriguez of KFF Health News.

To compare the two groups, "USDA researchers analyzed mortality data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from two three-year periods — 1999 through 2001, and 2017 through 2019," Rodriguez explains. "In 1999, the natural-cause mortality rate for rural working-age adults was only 6 percent higher than that of their city-dwelling peers. By 2019, the gap had widened to 43 percent." 

In reviewing demographic differences, Native American women fared the worst, but overall, a link between younger rural deaths and a lack of Medicaid expansion could be part of the cause. "USDA researchers and other experts noted that states in the South that have declined to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act had some of the highest natural-cause mortality rates for rural areas," Rodriguez reports. "But the researchers didn’t pinpoint the causes of the overall disparity."

Another possible connection could be the lack of rural health care options and rural hospital closures. "Alan Morgan, CEO of the National Rural Health Association, and other health experts have maintained for years that rural America needs more attention and investment in its health care systems by national leaders and lawmakers," Rodriguez adds. "It’s unlikely that things have improved for rural Americans since 2019, the last year in the periods the USDA researchers examined. The coronavirus pandemic was particularly devastating in rural parts of the country."

Kentucky has 15 veterinarians who are at least 85 years old; they're helping to offset the shortage in rural areas

At 85 years old, Dr. Gary Tran continues to practice.
(Photo by Michael Clevenger, Courier Journal)

The national veterinarian shortage could be even worse if it weren't for a number of people who continue practicing long past the traditional retirement age. "There are 15 licensed vets in the Bluegrass State over 85 years old . . . .These are doctors who have stayed with it as the shortage ballooned to plague more than 72% of rural Kentucky," reports Maggie Menderski of The Courier Journal. Three longtime veterinarians answered The Courier Journal's request for their professional insights.

"Being a vet certainly isn't a glamorous profession," Menderski reports. "The payoff never quite matched the hours they spent working or the schooling needed to become a veterinarian." All agreed that the profession's long hours and changes in veterinary educational costs have contributed to the country's rural vet shortage.

Dr. Gary Tran, 93, has kept his Marshall County practice going and adapted it to the needs of his community. "Tran, who immigrated to the United States during the Vietnam War, and his wife lived in a small house and raised five children. She worked in a factory and a restaurant to help make ends meet," Menderski writes. "After watching the hours their father kept at the emergency clinic, none of his children had any interest in studying veterinary medicine. Instead, all five became engineers."

Dr. Luel Overstreet in Henderson County is roughly eight years younger than Tran, and he has kept doing surgeries. "Working as a vet isn't just a career to him at this point. He's been treating animals and helping pet owners in Henderson, in some cases, for four generations," Menderski writes. "Overstreet doesn't recall just how much it cost for him to attend Auburn University in the 1960s, but in between semesters, he was able to make enough money to pay for his schooling by working in tobacco fields, baling hay and raising cattle. . . .The most dedicated veterinary student wouldn't be able to pay tuition off doing those same jobs today."

For Dr. Robert McCrory, who still practices in Benton County, "There were times he'd travel 20 miles to deliver a calf for $6," Menderski writes. "He worked from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday to Saturday and then split shifts on Sundays." McCrory told Menderski: "Back then, you didn't think anything of it because farmers work from daylight to dark."

Many new graduates do not want to work those schedules. "The schedule is one of the biggest changes they've seen in the modern generation of veterinarians," Menderski reports. "Vets today often have a mound of debt to pay off while starting their careers. The average student debt for all veterinary medicine graduates was $147,258 in 2022, according to the American Veterinary Medical Association. Tran, Overstreet and McCrory all graduated and started their careers decades ago debt-free."

Shale-oil bust hits rural economies as royalty checks wither

Horizontal hydraulic fracturing, which makes oil and gas in deep, dense shale easier to reach, turned the U.S. into the world's top energy producer before the crash. But the oil bust "has erased tens of thousands of jobs in the drilling and service sectors, dried up local tax revenues and charitable largess that flowed along with crude oil to Texas, North Dakota and Oklahoma," Jennifer Hiller reports for Reuters. It has also meant less income for about 12 million rural Americans who receive royalty checks for allowing frackers to drill on their land.

For example, Paul Ruckman, a retiree in DeWitt County, Texas, used to receive enough royalty money to build a six-bedroom vacation home with plenty left over, but told Hiller his checks have dropped 70 percent since January and said he imagines it'll get worse.

"Royalties, which can range from 12.5% to 25% of the value of oil and gas pumped, helped revitalize DeWitt and other communities in oil patches across the United States," Hiller reports. "The average oil-land owner collects about $500 a month, according to the National Association of Royalty Owners, but that will not last."

New generation of entrepreneurs emerges in Great Plains

Can “energy combined with business and social media savvy” seen in a new kind of young agribusiness entrepreneur help reverse the population decline in rural America?

That’s the question posed in a Christian Science Monitor story by Laurent Belsie, who gives anecdotal evidence that the Great Plains has a new generation of entrepreneurs — the first born after the farm crisis in the 1980s — who want to make their way by starting businesses in America’s farming communities. He describes them as “young people who straddle the end of the millennial generation and the beginning of Generation Z.”

Great Plains (Department of the Interior)

They go straight to building businesses in small communities rather than going first to cities to acquire skills.

“Unlike those who take over a conventional farm and help make it bigger and more efficient, these enterprising young people are starting small and unconventional operations,” Belsie writes.

Among several examples of young entrepreneurs starting “small and unconventional operations” is Hannah Esch of Nebraska, who owns Oak Barn Beef. Her new business has $52,000 in sales and has sold out of beef four times. She expects to double the business in the next year, around the time she finishes college.

Twin brothers Matt and Joe Brugger, who market beef directly from their own cows and grow hops for microbreweries, are renovating an old farmhouse on their family homestead. Free housing is a benefit, but there’s more to their desire to be back home. “It’s the place their great-grandfather bought when he moved here from Switzerland. It’s where their grandfather was born and where they played as children when the house was later rented by people who kept sheep.”

Gothenburg in Dawson County
and Nebraska (Wikipedia map)

Last September in Gothenburg, Neb. (pop. 3,448), Taylor Walker opened T. Walker’s restaurant on Main Street. He left college a year short of a teaching degree, explaining, “I’m not a real fan of the big cities … I had seen how the community of Gothenburg treated my dad with his businesses. If they continue that for me, then I owe it to them to be here.” Gothenburg also has a new newspaper, the Gothenburg Leader, started by two local entrepreneurs. The town is a financial and services center for the surrounding agricultural area.

“There is a spirit in these young people that is different than anything I’ve ever experienced,” says Tom Field, director of the eight-year-old Engler Agribusiness Entrepreneurship Program at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Of the 120 or more of its alumni, “90 percent of them say their goal is to return — or they choose to live in — a small or rural community. These are students who have had international experiences, had internships on both coasts, but they choose to live and work and play in places where they have a deep affinity with the culture, the people, and the landscape.”

Trade war escalates with new, broader tariffs on Chinese imports; more pressure on farmers, maybe through 2020

The U.S. trade war with China escalated again Thursday when President Trump said he would put a 10 percent tariff on an additional $300 billion worth of Chinese imports in September.

The announcement came as trade talks continued and as the president complained China didn’t follow through with a promise to buy more American farm products, and charged that China hasn’t stemmed the flow of the deadly opioid fentanyl to the U.S.

The tariffs would be in addition to 25 percent Trump previously imposed on $250 billion worth of goods from China. His announcement "stunned financial markets" and brought a warning from China that it would "have to take necessary counter-measures," Reuters reports.

The Associated Press notes, "U.S. consumers are likely to feel the pain if Trump proceeds with the new tariffs. Trump’s earlier tariffs had been designed to minimize the impact on ordinary Americans by focusing on industrial goods. The new tariffs will hit a vast range of consumer products from cellphones to silk scarves."

American farmers are particularly vulnerable in the trade war, so the administration announced another aid package for farmers hurt by it, but the source of money for that is running short, and many observers expect the Chinese to hang tough until after the presidential election in 15 months.

A Democratic-leaning group, Tariffs Hurt the Heartland, warned that more tariffs could result in farm failures: “The administration is doubling down on a failing strategy. Nobody wins in a trade war, and raising tariffs further on American businesses and consumers will only result in slower economic growth, more farm bankruptcies, fewer jobs and higher prices. . . . We all agree China is a bad actor, but an unprecedented tax hike on hardworking Americans is not the answer. It's time for the administration to come up with a real strategy, put a stop to harmful tariffs and finally deliver the trade deal Americans were promised."

Exchange program aims to bridge rural-urban gap in Ky.

Kentucky Rural-Urban Exchange participants do a square dance in Harlan County. (RUX photo)

Today the cultural, political and economic divide between rural and urban areas is as wide as it has ever been -- even in a state like Kentucky where many urban residents have rural roots. But bringing rural and urban residents together can help bridge that gap.

"That’s the idea behind the Kentucky Rural-Urban Exchange, a program that brings together leaders in diverse fields from across the state," Sarah Baird reports for CityLab. "Over the course of a year, RUX participants go on three weekend-long retreats to strengthen bonds with people from other parts of the state, creating a 'currency of connection' (in the words of RUX organizers) to increase mutual understanding, spark collective problem-solving, and, of course, develop friendships across divides, whether real or perceived." RUX was launched in 2014 by Eastern Kentucky arts group Appalshop and rural culture non-profit Art of the Rural.

The retreats take place in different parts of the state and revolve around activities that emphasize local culture and issues. And while rural residents might not deal with the same issues as urban residents, all participants can find common ground. "In the city, we have a gentrification issue that might not be a rural issue, necessarily. But they have some of the same fallout—like the rent being too high and generational poverty. So we began to really talk about these issues that we thought had totally different causes, and we started to see commonality," said Tanya Torp, a past RUX participant who lives in Lexington.

The genius of the program is that rural residents can be especially skilled in connecting with others, according to Savannah Barrett, an 11th-generation Kentuckian and Art of the Rural's program director. "There’s an interdependence. It’s more natural to look across whatever political or social differences when you have to count on each other. And in the 21st century, when people aren’t really conditioned to connect with one another, that’s a skill everyone needs to learn."

Living in a remote, rural, politically divided town

NPR photo

Haines, Alaska, is a small town with a big political divide. And we have to wonder if there aren't a lot more like it.

Just 2,500 people live in the town that's surrounded by water and snowy, forested mountains, Melissa Block reports for National Public Radio: "The city center is just a few blocks, with several bars, a few restaurants and a beautiful, award-winning library. But lately, this idyllic place has been roiled by a bitter political battle. A group of residents wants to recall more than half the members of the local government, the borough assembly. . . . Some people are upset over local issues, like a harbor expansion or who should be the new borough manager. But it's about more than that. It breaks down as old-timers versus newcomers, to some extent. But also, people who want resource development, like mining or logging, against 'greenies' — environmentalists who stand in the way."

Block suggests that the divide was reflected in the presidential election, which split Haines down the middle, with Hillary Clinton beating Donald Trump 374-370.

Motel owner Shane Horton is circulating the recall petition. "I came here and was doing construction and dirty work involved with the timber industry," he told Block. "And that went away. So I went into doing something else, and then that gets blown out of the water. How many times can I get told to completely start over because what I am doing is now not acceptable?"

Heather Lende, a writer elected to the assembly last fall, is one of the recall targets. "When Lende heard that some in her community were trying to oust her, she said, 'It was heartbreaking.' And social media only makes it worse, Lende says. Like just about anywhere, people in Haines say things online they wouldn't dare say in public in such a small place."

Lende's a liberal, but has close friends who are Trump supporters. "I'm not gonna lose a friend over whoever votes for someone in the national election, and maybe that's the lesson that can come from Haines for the rest of the world," she told Block. "We've lived with divisiveness for a long time, but is it worth losing a friend over? I don't think so."

Dave McCandless, another Haines resident, is confident that this, too, shall pass. "What you're seeing, this tension and this turmoil and all that, it's all happened before," he says. "This country has been full of that, just like the town is full of it. Three years from now we'll be arguing about something else just as feverishly. And we won't be able to remember what this was."

Alarming cancer disparities across rural Appalachia, study finds

Rural Appalachia has gone from having the lowest cancer death rates in the United States to the highest according to a study by The University of Virginia. Calling the disparities "pervasive" researchers are urging a "systematic effort to reduce the burden of cancer for rural Appalachia," because the rest of the country appears to be making major strides in the battle against cancer, writes CBS19 Charolettesville, Virginia.

The study says "it's part of a growing cancer crisis in the region, with disturbing trends in all sectors of cancer care, from screening to diagnosis to treatment."

Nengliang Yao, of the UVA School of Medicine, told CBS19: "Look at the war on poverty that President Johnson declared decades ago . . . We lost the war on poverty, and we're not doing much to battle the health care disparities in rural Appalachia. Because we can see it from our results: It's getting worse."

Decades of data obtained from the National Center for Health Statistics were used in the study, revealing disturbing trends: "Between 1969 and 2011, cancer incidence declined in every region of the country except rural Appalachia, where it increased. During that time, rural Appalachia went from having the lowest cancer death rate in the country to the highest. Cancer mortality rates during 2007-11 were 14.7 percent higher in the rural Appalachian counties in Virginia than in non-Appalachian urban areas in the rest of the country."

"In the rural Appalachian areas of Kentucky, mortality rates were 36 percent higher. Rural residents in every other state in the Appalachian region, except for Maryland, had higher mortality rates than their urban counterparts. Breast cancer is less likely to be caught early in rural Appalachia than elsewhere. People in Appalachia are more likely to die within three to five years of their cancer diagnoses than people in urban areas outside Appalachia."

CBS19 writes that economic, geographic and political challenges all stand in the way of quality cancer care in the Appalachian region, adding that access to health care providers, lower population numbers, significant distances and travel times and people with limited transportation options face major obstacles.

Perceived Washington indifference towards rural South fuels support for Trump and Sanders

Trump in Radford, Va., Monday (Roanoke
Times photo by Stephanie Klein-Davis)

Discourse in the rural South over a downturn in local economies and a perceived notion that Washington politicians don't care about the region "is driving the insurgent candidacies of Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders and has turned the 2016 election upside down," Mason Adams reports for Politico. "The right blames illegal immigrants, President Barack Obama and congressional leadership that hasn’t fought Obama hard enough. The left blames big banks, the rich and a Republican Congress that only obstructs."

Adams, a former reporter for The Roanoke Times, writes: "The American South is about to put its stamp on the 2016 campaign—a stamp that could all but end the presidential primary race." Voters today in Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia "will decide two-thirds of the day’s vote for both Democrats and Republicans, definitively framing the campaign and perhaps ending it."

Residents in the rural South are "haunted by empty factories and warehouses that symbolize the once-dominant businesses that have long since departed for more profitable locales," Adams writes. "Economic instability has left those who haven’t fled to the metro areas feeling anxious and unrepresented. The resulting frustration has propelled politicians who have harnessed that angst into outsider campaigns by attacking those at fault." (Huffington Post map: States voting today)

"Everyone wants to overhaul, if not dismantle, political and economic systems that they see as rigged against them," Adams writes. "Around the South, longtime employers where generations of families could be assured of steady work have sloughed off jobs, shuttered their factories and shifted operations overseas. In its place is what’s known as the 'gig economy,' where workers must reinvent themselves several times within a lifetime. The chaotic—and unequal economic—transition continues to create anxiety, frustration and fear across rural communities. The anger is not just over lost jobs, but the indifference of Washington in watching them go."

Adams uses southwest Virginia as his object example. John Bassett III, subject of former Roanoke Times reporter Beth Macy's book Factory Man: How One Furniture Maker Battled Offshoring, Stayed Local—and Helped Save an American Town, told Adams, “Politically, I don’t care whether you’re on the right over there, or if you’re on the left, all the way over to Bernie Sanders, I think you’ll find not only anger, you’ll find frustration. We have a whole segment of our population that has been forgotten. They have been left behind.” The book, based on Bassett's experiences in Galax, Va., is reportedly in production to be a mini-series on HBO produced by Tom Hanks.

U.S. future lies in strength of rural communities, Buffets say at Rural Futures Conference

The future of America "lies in the strength of its rural communities," Howard G. Buffett and Howard W. Buffett said on Wednesday during the Rural Futures Conference at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Chris Dunker reports for the Lincoln Star Journal. "To kick off the fifth season of the Heuermann Lecture Series, which focuses on food, water and agriculture, the Buffetts said their philanthropic efforts around the world have highlighted the need to develop strong rural communities back home." (Associated Press photo: Howard G. Buffett)

"Howard G. Buffett, son of Omaha investor Warren Buffett, works through his foundation to solve problems related to hunger and security in areas of conflict," Dunker writes. "He said the challenges faced in rural communities will require long-term planning and implementation. His son, Howard W. Buffett, is a lecturer at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and Columbia University in New York in international and public affairs, philanthropy and food and agricultural policy." They co-wrote a book, “Finding Hope: Pioneering Your Own 40 Chances” that consists "of a series of vignettes about inspiring people who make a difference in the world and the processes of philanthropy in underdeveloped areas."

Howard "said the sense of community found in rural areas is universal—neighbors step up to help neighbors, community members lend a helping hand to others—and that creates a 'sense of family that necessarily doesn’t exist in a lot of urban neighborhoods,'" Dunker writes. “We spent countless numbers of days and hours with farmers all over the world learning about their challenges and their hopes,” Howard said. “The one thing that always seemed so interesting about coming back was really having that feeling or sense of community of being out in the agricultural operations.” He said "those traits will continue to make rural America stand out in the years to come."

Howard, who called the conference and others like it "probably the most important thing happening in America today," said, "We built this country from rural America up. If there’s one thing in America that I have watched for the last 30 years with a really disappointing view . . . we have allowed rural America to slip . . . The political game is stacked against us in many ways in Washington, so when I say this is one of the most important things happening in America, I’m serious. Rural America has to survive and stay strong, and it’s the people sitting in this room and coming to this conference who are going to do this. No one is going to do it for us.” (Read more)

Interactive map details state-level data about EPA's Clean Power Plan

Environment & Energy Publishing has created a handy interactive map, the Power Plan Hub, that details the final emission rates for each state under the Environmental Protection Agency's Clean Power Plan to reduce carbon dioxide and other greenhouse-gas emissions. Clicking on each state reveals information such as that state's plan, fact sheets on legal challenges, grid reliability concerns, responses from state officials and links to relevant stories. For an interactive version, click here.

National Rural Health Day is Thursday; webinars available on a variety of health issues

The fourth annual National Rural Health Day is scheduled for Thursday. The yearly event is "an opportunity to 'Celebrate the Power of Rural' by honoring the selfless, community-minded, 'can do' spirit of that prevails in rural America," says the organization's website. "But it also gives us a chance to bring to light the unique healthcare challenges that rural citizens face–and showcase the efforts of rural healthcare providers, State Offices of Rural Health and other rural stakeholders to address those challenges."

"Today more than ever, rural communities must address accessibility issues, a lack of healthcare providers, the needs of an aging population suffering from a greater number of chronic conditions and larger percentages of un- and underinsured citizens," says National Rural Health Day. "And rural hospitals–which are often the economic foundation of their communities in addition to being the primary providers of care–struggle daily as declining reimbursement rates and disproportionate funding levels make it challenging to serve their residents."

National Rural Health Day consists of a series of webinars on: AgriSafe—Growing Families Strong: Protecting the People who Feed America, ORHP Quality Showcase, Rural Health 101: States & Communities at Work, ACA and You, Rural Policy and Advocacy Issues, and Collaborative Rural Success Stories. (Read more)

CBS News profiles Eula Hall, 86, a lifelong champion for health care in impoverished Appalachia

Eula Hall

This week marks the 50th anniversary of President Lyndon Johnson's declaration of the War on Poverty as part of his Great Society program, in his first State of the Union speech. While many stories about poverty in rural America are sad, detailing the struggles people have faced or are still facing, CBS News had an inspiring story Wednesday profiling Eula Hall, an Eastern Kentucky woman who has dedicated her life to fighting to improve health care in rural impoverished Appalachia. Hall's life has also been chronicled in the book Mud Creek Medicine.

Hall, 86, told CBS, "We didn’t have indoor plumbing, we didn’t have running water. There was no health care for the people who didn’t have any insurance or money... people died because they didn’t get the proper health care." Hall, who left school after eighth-grade, "began working with community organizers who taught her how to fight to get things done," Don Dahler writes for CBS. "She eventually became the driving force in changing her corner of Appalachia."

In Hall's neck of the woods, Floyd County, 90 percent of the wells were contaminated with bacteria, Dahler writes. Hall decided to do something about it. "In the late 1960s, she got federal funds to have clean water piped in from the closest water treatment plant. Using federal grants and private donations, Hall also built the first and only medical clinic in the county. What began as a shack in 1973 is now a modern facility with its own doctors, X-rays and pharmacy, serving over 7,000 patients a year." Hall told CBS, "I love this place because I know when they open that door and they walk in, they're going to be treated with respect, and they're going to be treated with the best we've got to offer." (Read more) (CBS News video)