Two ways to look at how your state handled the pandemic: raw data, and data adjusted for state age and health status

How did your state handle the pandemic? These maps from The Lancet, a British medical journal, tell the story. The unadjusted rates on the left are from simple data: How many coronavirus infections and how many Covid-19 deaths were there, per 100,000 residents? The standardized rates take into account age and "comorbidities," other medical conditions that may lead to infection or death.

To illustrate the standardization, take a look at Kentucky, a state with relatively poor health status. Its infection and death rates were worse than the national average, but when adjusted for age and the high level of comorbidities in the population, both rates were better than the national average.

The maps accompany an article credited to a long list of researchers, led by Thomas Bollyky of the Council on Foreign Relations and Emma Castro of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington. They write, "States' struggles in the Covid-19 pandemic were not inevitable. The nearly four-fold differences that existed across states in Covid-19 death rates, even when standardized for factors such as age and comorbidities, suggest that lower death rates were achievable. The states with the lowest standardised Covid-19 death rates—Hawaii, New Hampshire, Maine, Vermont, and Maryland—are not confined to a single geographical region, nor did they all have governors from the same political party. The same is true for the states and territories with the highest standardized death rates—Arizona; Washington, D.C.; New Mexico; Mississippi; and Colorado."

But politics did play a role, the researchers wrote: "Declining economic conditions among lower-income Americans without a university degree have also weakened bonds of interpersonal trust—civic organisations, family bonds, and unions. Our results suggest interpersonal trust (i.e., trust in others) has played an outsized role in the Covid-19 pandemic, as it has in other epidemics where scientific uncertainties are great and public confidence is easily undermined. Having greater interpersonal trust motivates individuals to protect others in the community and reduces their fear of being misled and exploited by their peers. States with a higher percentage of people who voted for the 2020 Republican presidential candidate are associated with lower interpersonal trust in our study results. Trust has long been partisan in the USA, with citizens reporting less trust in government when the president comes from a different party than their own."

How rural is your state, according to the last census?

Climate has changed most in the West, the North and Florida; state-by-state figures may indicate local examples

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration data; Axios map, adapted by The Rural Blog

"Climate change is often cast as a global issue. But in reality, it's already affecting each of us in our backyards," write Andrew Freedman and Michael Graff of Axios. "The more people see the impact on their own lives, the more likely it is that they'll look for things they can do about it — from the candidates and policies they support to the personal changes they can make." Washington state just hired its first climate epidemiologist, Crosscut reports. Meanwhile, the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere broke a record in May, The New York Times reports.

Local climate impacts include weather problems of farmers and "the fire ant and its march through North Carolina," Axios reports. "The non-native species with the unforgettable sting was first discovered in Brunswick County, North Carolina, in the farthest southeastern corner of the state along the South Carolina line, in the 1950s, about 20 years after it arrived in the U.S. from South America. Now 78 of North Carolina's 100 counties are under fire ant quarantine area designations, according to a North Carolina Agriculture report from January. The fire ants aren't migrating simply because the temperature is warming farther inland. They also float as colonies around their queen, hitching rides inland on floods from more frequent and intense rainfall events."

Some effects aren't quite so apparent, until they are. "Climate change unfolds in the margins day to day until it becomes impossible to avoid," Graff and Freedman write. "Perhaps one morning you realize the place you live experiences totally different weather conditions than when you first arrived there, or that your community has seen three so-called 100-year floods in the past two years. . . . Heavy precipitation events have become more frequent across the country, especially in the Midwest and Northeast. When Climate Central studied rainfall at 150 U.S. weather stations, it found that hourly rainfall intensity has increased since 1970 at 90 percent of them."

Analysis of census data shows Vermont has highest proportion of same-sex couples; how does your state rank?

Proportion of LGBTQ population by state
(Gallup map; click the image to enlarge it or click here for the interactive version)

The state with the highest ratio of same-sex couples is Vermont, one of the most rural states, and it "has the seventh-highest rate of LGBTQ people in the nation, according to a survey analysis from the Williams Institute" at UCLA, Erin Petenko reports for VTDigger. She notes a recent report that the number of people identifying themselves as LGBTQ is rising nationwide: "About 7 percent of adults said they considered themselves to be lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or something 'other than heterosexual' in 2021, compared to 3.5% of respondents in 2012, according to Gallup."

Data on the LGBTQ+ population has been difficult to pin down. The 2020 decennial census was the first to collect data on same-sex couples, Petenko reports.

The District of Columbia has the highest overall percentage of LGBTQ people, at 9.8%, but Idaho has the highest percentage of LGBTQ individuals with children, at 44%, according to Gallup.

Rural coronavirus infection and death rates still dwarf metro rates; Georgia, Idaho have highest non-metro death rates

New coronavirus infections, in ranges by county, Oct. 3-9
Map by The Daily Yonder; click the image to enlarge it or click here for the interactive version.

New coronavirus infections in non-metropolitan counties fell about 12 percent during the week of Oct. 3-9, marking the third consecutive week of falling rates, and Covid-19 deaths dell 14% in non-metro counties and 12% in metro counties, Tim Murphy and Tim Marema report for The Daily Yonder. Overall, the rural infection rate was about two-thirds higher than the metropolitan rate as of Oct. 9, while the rural death rate was 89% higher.

Some states' rural areas fared better than others. Rural counties in 12 states had higher infection rates last week than two weeks ago, led by Nevada's 84% increase. "Other states that saw double-digit percentage increases in rural infection rates were New Hampshire, Colorado, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Connecticut, North Dakota, and Montana," Murphy and Marema report. "States that reduced their rural infection rates by more than 30% were Nebraska, Alaska, Texas, Alabama, Georgia, Florida, West Virginia, and Maine."

Among the Yonder's interactive features is a chart comparing metro and non-metro infection and deaths rates by state. It's sortable by column; this screenshot shows the top 25 states by non-metro death rates. Nevada has the highest infection rate.

Screenshot of chart by The Daily Yonder; click here for the interactive version.

Covid-19 vaccination gaps mainly in South and rural areas; health experts say that leaves room for variants to develop

Washington Post map shows vaccination rates; to enlarge, click on it.

A month after every American adult became eligible to get a coronavirus vaccine, "a distinct geographic pattern has emerged," The Associated Press reports. "The highest vaccination rates are concentrated in the Northeast, while the lowest ones are mostly in the South. "The divides aren’t just limited to states — there are marked differences between urban and rural places, from county to county and from one neighborhood to another."

The disparities are even more glaring when looking at individual places around the U.S.," Collin Binkley, Jay Reeves and John Seewer report. "Vermont has four counties where 75% of the residents have had at least one dose, while there are 11 Mississippi counties with under 25% vaccinated. . . . Experts say the gap reflects a multitude of factors, including political leanings, religious beliefs, and education and income levels."

The gaps leave openings for the virus, and mutated variants that could be more contagious or deadly, experts say. “Low vaccination rates will leave room for the virus to circulate, re-emerge and possibly form new variants,” Tara Kirk Sell, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, told AP. “High vaccination rates are critical to keeping the disease under control, especially when we get back to the fall and winter.”

The story notes a recent Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report that 39% of adults in rural counties had received at least one dose of vaccine, compared with 46% in urban counties as of April 10.

Census showed slow population growth, but also displayed continued movement among states in their rankings

Washington Post graph shows changes in population rank of states, D.C. and Puerto Rico. To enlarge, click on it.

"The story of the U.S. population is one of fluidity," report Harry Stevens and Nick Kirkpatrick of The Washington Post. "Of the 50 states plus Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico, more than half jumped ahead or fell behind others this year, despite state population totals that showed the nation’s slowest population growth since the 1930s. Compared with a century ago, the shifts are even more significant, with states rising by as many as 33 positions or falling by as many as 16. No single explanation can capture the complexity of these population shifts. Within any given region, some states have flourished while others declined. As some economies faltered, new industries sprung up and attracted migration from inside and outside the country."

America's Health Rankings makes annual report, based on more metrics than before but with no overall ranking

America's Health Rankings map, with figures for states ranking high in multiple chronic conditions added by The Rural Blog

The latest edition of America's Health Rankings, from the United Health Foundation, gives a set of snapshots for every state. The report usually gives each state an overall ranking, but this one does not, citing the health challenges of the coronavirus pandemic.

However, the latest rankings have even more comparative information for states than before, because they are based on 74 separate metrics, more than double the number used for previous rankings. County-level information is available from other sources for many of those metrics.

States with large percentages of rural population tend to rank low. One example of that is the high share of people with more than one chronic condition; the 10 states with the largest percentages of people with multiple chronic conditions are Maine, the most rural state by population, and a group of states running from Appalachia to the Mississippi Delta to Oklahoma.

Commonwealth Fund state health system scorecard shows increases in 'deaths of despair' have big regional differences

Suicide, alcohol and drug-overdose deaths have increased markedly in the past decade, and the prevalence of these "deaths of despair" vary by region. So says The Commonwealth Fund's latest Scorecard on State Health System Performance.

The scorecard evaluates states on 47 indicators of health in five areas: access and affordability, prevention and treatment, avoidable hospital use and hospital cost, health outcomes and healthy lives,which includes measures on premature death, health status and risky behaviors. This is the Commonwealth Fund's seventh scorecard, with the first one released in 2007.

From 2005 to 2017, the report shows that deaths from drug overdoses went up 115%, deaths from alcohol increased 37% and deaths from suicide increased 28%. In every state, deaths from those causes have risen at least 3 percent since 2005.

"Drug overdose mortality is disproportionately impacting states in the eastern part of the country and suicide and alcohol related deaths are occurring at higher rates in the west," David Radley, senior scientist at The Commonwealth Fund and lead author of the study, said during a press conference.

“What we're seeing is a regional epidemic when it comes to premature deaths from suicide, alcohol, and drugs," Dr. David Blumenthal, president of The Commonwealth Fund, said in the news release. "It's going to take solutions that meet local need, and greater cooperation across all sectors -- at both the federal and state level -- to end the crisis that is shortening life expectancy in the United States."

For the first time, the scorecard also includes regional comparisons. The Commonwealth Fund also has a data center (datacenter.commonwealthfund.org) that allows users to explore state health system performance and policy data through custom tables, graphs and maps.

Report ranks best, worst states to live in; how did yours do?

Washington is the best overall state to live in and Louisiana, for the third year in a row, is the worst, according to U.S. News & World Report's annual Best States Rankings.

The rankings draw on more than 70 metrics in eight main categories such as health care, education, economy, infrastructure; some measures are weighted based on what people said matters most to them. "Health care and education were weighted most heavily," U.S. News says. "Then came state economies, infrastructure, and the opportunity states offer their citizens. Fiscal stability followed closely in weighting, followed by measures of crime & corrections and a state's natural environment.

"At a time when the federal government is attempting to hand more responsibility for spending and policymaking to the states, these rankings offer the first comprehensive view, state by state, of how some states already are performing best," the report says. "This highly interactive platform enables users to explore thousands of important benchmarks and easily draw state-to-state comparisons. Build a chart, share it, and ultimately learn what all the states can learn from one another."

The overall top five states are, in descending order: Washington, New Hampshire, Minnesota, Utah, and Vermont. The overall bottom five states are, in descending order, New Mexico, West Virginia, Mississippi, Alabama, and Louisiana.

States that expanded Medicaid tended to improve most in latest scorecard of health system performance

States that expanded Medicaid showed the greatest improvement in health-system performance from 2013 to 2016, according to a scorecard released today by The Commonwealth Fund, which says it advocates for high-performing health systems but takes no position per se on the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, which enabled expansion of Medicaid to people with incomes up to 138 percent of the federal poverty level.

A chart with the report shows the improvement and decline of each state across 37 indicators that measure access to care, quality and efficiency of care, health outcomes and income-based health care disparities. (Click on the chart to view a larger version.)

Among the nine states that improved on the most indicators, only Oklahoma has not expanded Medicaid. It did show a big drop in its smoking rate, to 19 percent from 26 percent. Commonwealth Fund President David Blumenthal said in a telephone press conference that the state's second largest city, Tulsa, "has a very aggressive, citywide health-improvement program." Researchers for the fund noted afterward that Oklahoma's improvement in the percentage of people without health insurance, to 20 percent from 25 percent, "is certainly better than nothing, but it doesn’t come close to the improvement that states like Arkansas, Kentucky or New Mexico, that did expand Medicaid, saw."


The overall rankings of health system performance placed Oklahoma next to last, behind Louisiana, where the expansion of Medicaid did not some until 2016 and thus was not reflected in the report. Hawaii, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Vermont, and Utah were ranked highest overall. In the rankings, California and Oregon rose the most, jumping nine and 10 spots, respectively.

New list shows how prepared each state is for a public health emergency; poor, rural states lag

The annual Health Security Preparedness Index was released in April, which ranks each state on how prepared it is to respond to public health crises such as natural disasters, terrorism, or disease outbreaks. Maryland claimed the top spot on the list, while Nevada and Alaska brought up the rear.

"By analyzing 140 measures—including the percentage of bridges in good or fair condition, flu vaccination rates and the number of pediatricians—the index calculates a composite score to determine health preparedness for the country as a whole, as well as individual scores for each state," Kate Elizabeth Queram reports for Route Fifty.

Preparedness continues to improve overall, with the country as a whole scoring a 7.1 out of a possible 10--nearly 3 percent higher than last year, and almost 11 percent higher than in 2013 when the index was first created. The biggest gains in the past year were in information and incident management, which is state and local governments' ability to divert people, supplies, money and information to the locations where they're most needed, Queram reports.

Inequalities in health security remain a challenge, especially in highly rural states in the deep South and Mountain West. Many of those states face a disproportionate number of people living in poverty and an elevated risk of disasters.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention began compiling the index in 2013, but it's now created as a collaborative effort of more than 30 organizations and funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. 

Record 21 states see decline in well-being in 2017

For for the first time in the nine years The Gallup Organization and Sharecare have been tracking changes in Americans' well-being, no state saw any statistically significant improvement over the past year. People in 21 states, mostly in the South and West, saw their well-being scores drop by a statistically significant margin from 2017. That broke the previous record set in 2009 during the Great Recession, when well-being in 15 states declined.

Nevertheless, Americans said they were more confident about the economy and believed the job market was better in 2017 than they did in 2009, Dan Witters reports for Gallup.

The data is based on more than 160,000 interviews with U.S. adults in all 12 months of 2017. The Gallup-Sharecare Well-Being Index is a mean score comprised of metrics that measure five elements of well-being:

• Purpose: liking what you do each day and being motivated to achieve your goals
• Social: having supportive relationships and love in your life
• Financial: managing your economic life to reduce stress and increase security
• Community: liking where you live, feeling safe and having pride in your community
• Physical: having good health and enough energy to get things done daily

Many states showed declines in metrics concerning purpose, social well-being, and mental health, such as increased worrying, little interest or pleasure in doing things, not liking what they do each day, more clinical depression diagnoses, more daily physical pain, less "positive energy" received from friends and family, less encouragement from others to be healthy, fewer people who have a leader in their life who makes them "enthusiastic about the future," fewer people reaching their goals, and less satisfaction with their standard of living, Witters reports.

The states that saw declines in well-being in 2017 and mostly in the South and West, including states that have had historically high well-being scores. West Virginia had the lowest well-being score in the nation, a spot it has held for nine consecutive years. South Dakota and Vermont, which have both been high-ranked in years past, tied for the best well-being scores.

Employers should care about this because workers with higher well-being scores are much better performers, are likely to have fewer unplanned absences, and use less health care than workers with lower well-being scores. They're also more likely to stay at the same job, file fewer worker compensation claims, and are more resilient in the face of challenges like lay-offs or natural disasters.

Community leaders should care because drops in well-being "increase the liability in each of these areas for the states that suffer them and should command the attention of their leaders, as weakening well-being can result in slowing the pace of an otherwise improving economy," Witter reports.

Coal's decline made Wyo. and W.Va. top percentage losers in population in 2017; Idaho had most gain

The decline of the coal industry made the top two coal-producing states, Wyoming and West Virginia, lose more of their population this year than any other state, the Bureau of the Census estimates.

"Those two, and others in the lower echelon, have something in common: resource dependence," notes Andew Van Dam of The Washington Post. "That helps explain why the state went from the fourth-fastest growing in 2012 (D.C. was first that year) to rock bottom in 2017." Wyoming's loss was entirely from its residents moving out; its births outnumbered its deaths; that was not the case in West Virginia, which lost its status as No. 1 coal state to Wyoming decades ago.

Both states suffer from the resource curse, "in which natural-resource wealth actually harms developing countries because it crowds out important long-term investments in infrastructure, education and industrialization," Van Dam writes. "Resource-dependent states may see a population recovery in 2018 thanks to a partial recovery in energy prices, but that does nothing to break their cycle of dependence on global commodity markets." He contrasts Wyoming with its neighbor, Idaho, which was the fastest-growing state this year, followed by Nevada, Utah and Washington.

The story has three good charts, one showing the growth or loss rankings of each state by decade since 1900; another with the percentages of state gross domestic product in 2016 that came from mining, including oil and gas (20.29 percent in Wyoming, 11.52 percent in West Virginia); and the sources of population growth or loss: migration from other states, migration from abroad, and net births and deaths (indicated by different colors). Here's an emendated screenshot of the bottom of that chart, showing the states that lost population (as shown by the horizontal black lines to the left of the chart's vertical axis; Wyoming's line shows that it lost almost 1 percent of its population this year):

Here's a screenshot of the top three-fifths of the first chart, with the states ranked by this year's estimated growth:

Iowa is first state to generate more than 1/3 of electricity from wind; prices fell 2/3 in last 6 years

Iowa is the first state to generate more than a third of its electricity from wind. According to a report from The American Wind Energy Association, "Iowa is deriving more than 35 percent of its electricity from wind energy, an increase from statistics made public earlier this year," The Associated Press reports. The figure is based on a 12-month rolling average through the end of August 2016, as compiled by the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

Iowa is ranked third nationally in the number of electricity-producing wind turbines, with just over 3,700, AP reports. Iowa also has the seventh lowest electricity prices in the country, and its wind energy supports 7,000 jobs.

Data through September 2016. For an interactive map click here. (AWEA graphic)

Iowa isn't the only state that has gained momentum; utilities and ratepayers across the country have increased their investment in wind energy. Thanks to technological innovation, the price consumers pay for wind power fell two thirds in six years, the wind-energy group said. According to the Wind Energy Foundation, wind turbines generate about 4 percent of U.S. electricity.

Big coal states got breaks in EPA climate plan

The Obama administration's plan for reducing carbon-dioxide emissions from coal-fired power plants accommodates the needs and wants of coal states, Ari Phillips reports for Climate Progress.

"Unsurprisingly, politicians in these states have been among the most vehement attackers of the proposal, tying it into their 'war on coal' narrative," Phillips writes. "However, they fail to mention the concessions the EPA is giving them based on their existing energy generating fleets and limited potential to drastically cut emissions." (Click on image for larger version)

While Republicans in Kentucky's congressional delegation strongly criticized the plan, "John Lyons, Kentucky’s assistant secretary for climate policy, told The Wall Street Journal that he “EPA recognizes our issue and provided the flexibility that we had said was needed in order to meet whatever standards they put forward. They pretty much laid out every option out there that you could think about.” The state administration in Kentucky is Democratic. (Read more)

"Kentucky may be well positioned to meet a carbon emission target for power plants set by federal regulators, even as U.S. Senate candidates there blast the plan, saying it will cripple the state''s coal industry," reports Valerie Volcovici of Reuters.
 

What's the most over-represented job in your state?

The online Business Insider has crunched data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and come up with an interesting map that shows the most over-represented job in each state — not the most common job, but the one that is most disproprtionately concentrated in that state, compared to the nation. (Click on map for larger version)

Several states offer no surprises, reflecting concentration of certain industries: Hawaii tour guides, California farmworkers, Washington aircraft assemblers, Nevada gaming supervisors, Texas petroleum engineers, Arkansas food processing workers, Louisiana sailors, Florida motorboat operators, D.C. political scientists, New York fashion designers, Maine and Oregon loggers, Kentucky and West Virginia miners, Georgia and North Carolina textile workers, Idaho, Montana and Utah forestry technicians, and oil and gas drillers in Oklahoma, North Dakota and Wyoming.

The New Mexico physicists probably reflect the location of the Los Alamos National Laboratory, and the Delaware chemists the site of E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Co. Connecticut actuaries likewise represent the many insurance companies in the state, and Purdue University surely is proud that boilermakers are concentrated in Indiana. It's no surprise that butchers are big in Nebraska, but why are they likewise in Alaska? (Makes a cute rhyme.) And why are marriage and family therapists big in New Jersey? Could have something to do with their proximity to New York City. But psychiatric technicians (who knew there was such a thing?) are big in Missouri. Fascinating.

Rural editor-publisher wonders why so many of his uninsured neighbors haven't signed up for coverage

With open enrollment in the new health-insurance exchanges ending March 31, at least one rural editor wonders why most people in his community who lack coverage haven't take advantage of the historic opportunity. And since he's in Kentucky, he used the state's next-to-last ranking in the latest Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index as the point of departure for an article that took up most of his editorial page.

"Kentucky is its own worst enemy . . . and if you think this is just an Eastern Kentucky problem, you aren't paying attention," Editor-Publisher Ryan Craig, right, wrote in last week's Todd County Standard, in Western Kentucky. "Our numbers suggest we are as miserable as anywhere in the state, i.e., the nation." Craig then listed statistics for poverty, income, education and health insurance and said bluntly, "We are near the bottom in all of these categories, which are the same categories that cause Kentucky to have such a dismal ranking in the Miserable Test year after year."

Craig said Todd County, "it seems, is among the bottom of counties who signed up for the Affordable Care Act," and wondered why only 533 of the estimated 2,455 people in his county without health insurance have signed up for it: "Is it because of fear of the unknown? Politics?" President Obama got only 29.7 percent of the county's vote in the 2012 election.

"The prevailing answer people tell me is that they would rather pay the tax penalty and not have the insurance," Craig reported. "What would happen if that person or someone in their family was in a car wreck? They readily admit that they are taking a big chance, but don't see how they can afford the insurance even when it is cheaper now, especially those who are very sick and couldn't get insurance before." One man told Craig he would have to declare bankruptcy.

"The deadline to apply for health insurance through the exchange is March 31," Craig wrote. "If you don't have insurance, at least consider the process." The Standard has been judged Kentucky's best small weekly newspaper seven years in a row, but doesn't put news or editorials online. For a scan of the editorial as a PDF, click here.

North Dakota tops Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index; West Virginia last for fifth straight year

North Dakota might be the happiest place to live in the U.S. The state topped the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index for 2013, displacing Hawaii, which had held the top spot for the past four years. On the other end of the spectrum, folks in West Virginia and Kentucky are living the least happy, healthy and prosperous lives; West Virginia ranked last, hitting the bottom of the list for the fifth straight year. But the numerical differences are not very large.

States are scored on a scale of 0 to 100 based on interviews with residents about emotional health, work environment, physical health, healthy behaviors and access to basic necessities, Witters writes. The national average was 66.2, down 66.7 from 2012. North Dakota had a score of 70.4, while West Virginia scored 61.4.

North Dakota scored the highest for work environment, 60.7, and physical health, 79.6. Alaska was highest for emotional health, at 82.9. Vermont was first for health behaviors, at 71.7. Massachusetts was first for access to basic necessities, at 86.9. West Virginia was last in every category except work environment, with Mississippi holding that spot.

After North Dakota, the rest of the top 10 were: South Dakota, 70; Nebraska, 69.7; Minnesota, 69.7; Montana, 69.3; Vermont, 69.1; Colorado, 68.9; Hawaii, 68.4; Washington, 68; and Iowa, 68.2; After West Virginia and Kentucky, the other states at the bottom of the list were: Mississippi, 63.7; Alabama, 64.1; Ohio, 64.2; Arkansas, 64.3; Tennessee, 64.3; Missouri, 64.5; Oklahoma, 64.7; and Louisiana, 64.9. (Read more) (Gallup graphic)

Federal government shutdown is shutting down logging in 150 national forests

The federal government shutdown led the U.S. Forest Service to notify 450 timber purchasers on Monday that it has shut down logging operations in 150 national forests, Jeff Barnard reports for The Associated Press. Loggers were given seven days to finish cutting and hauling out logs on timber sales where they are already working. "What this means is another economic hit to rural areas in tough economic shape during the government shutdown," Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) told Barnard. (Read more)

Many rural states rely heavily on timber sales. Oregon leads the country in softwood timber production, employing 76,000 people while resulting in $5.2 billion in total income and $12.7 billion in total industrial output, according to The 2012 Forest Report. Washington, which ranks second in softwood, accounts for $5 billion, making it the state's third largest commodity, according to the Washington Mill Survey. Pennsylvania leads the country in hardwood timber production, and Tennessee and Kentucky are usually second and third. Information from the Forest Service is unavailable because the website has been shut down until the government gets back to work. (Read more)