Old-style Catholics' migration to Kansas town an example of 'cultural secession' that has implications for societal diversity

Students at the local Catholic school sing with Father
Paul-Isaac Franks (Atlantic photo by Bryan Schutmaat)

We've written more than once about how a person's political views can influence where they move, but a small Kansas town dominated by old-school Roman Catholics is an extreme example of the desire to live among like-minded people, Emma Green reports for The Atlantic.

In St. Mary's, Kansas, a town of about 4,000, the vast majority of people are Catholic. That's not an accident: In the 1960s, many Catholics objected to the liturgical changes made by the Second Vatican Council and sought to practice their faith more traditionally (saying Mass in Latin, for example). So they formed the Society of St. Pius X, commonly called SSPX, named for a pope (1903-14) who opposed modernism, and have settled in a number of small communities all over the world.

Catholics from all over the country have settled in St. Mary's over the past 40 years, drawn by the opportunity to practice their faith apart from mainstream America. The town isn't cut off from modern life—people watch Hulu and shop at Sam's Club—but SSPX Catholicism permeates the town. The mayor and the entire city council are SSPX Catholics. Few women work, and families are large, since they don't believe in using birth control; so many children have been born in St. Mary's that the SSPX population has more than doubled the town's size since the 1960s, Green reports.

SSPX communities aren't a new concept. "Throughout American history, religious groups have walled themselves off from the rhythms and mores of society . . . These groups ostensibly have little in common, but they share a sense that living according to their beliefs while continuing to participate in mainstream American life is not possible. They have elected to undertake what might be termed cultural secession," Green reports. "Katherine Dugan, an assistant professor of religion at Springfield College, in Massachusetts, who studies Catholicism in the U.S., describes the desire for protected, set-apart communities as 'a natural American response to not liking what the cultural context is.'"

St. Marys, Kansas (Wikipedia map)

SSPX followers told Green they felt isolated by their faith before they moved to St. Mary's, that they were concerned about being labeled bigots by co-workers or friends, and that they worried about raising children in an increasingly secular society.

It's hard to measure just secular a nation is, but there's something to the SSPX followers' fears that the U.S. is becoming more secular. Millennials (those aged 23-38) are almost as likely to say they have no religion as they are to identify as Christians, Daniel Cox and Amelia Thomson-DeVeaux report for FiveThirtyEight. That's perhaps unsurprising, they note, since a new national survey found that millennials are less likely than other generations to have been raised with strong ties to religion in the first place.

"In 2000, 41% of the country said they attended religious services once a week or more, compared to 14% in 2000 who said they never did. This year we found less than 30%; 29% of Americans say they attend religious services weekly or more, compared with 26% who now tell us they never attend," said Chuck Todd on Meet the Press last week, referring to a NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll.

So, SSPX residents of St. Mary's aren't wrong when they say American society is changing. But, Green cautions: "The rise of more radical self-sorting poses a challenge to America’s experiment in multicultural democracy, enshrined in the motto e pluribus unum—'Out of many, one.' The dream of a diverse society is replaced with one in which different groups coexist, but mostly try to stay out of one another’s way. The ongoing experiment in St. Marys suggests what might be gained by such a realignment—and what might be lost."

Webinar tomorrow at 1 ET on USDA rural broadband funds

The Rural Development office of the U.S. Department of Agriculture will host a free webinar at 1 p.m. ET on Dec. 18 to discuss USDA's ReConnect Program, which offers grants and loans to improve rural broadband buildout.

A second round of ReConnect funding was announced on Dec. 12. The USDA will provide up to $200 million in grants, $200 million in low-interest loans, and up to $200 million for 50/50 loan/grant combinations. Applications must be submitted by March 16.

In the hour-long webinar, Rural Development staff will go over types of funding, eligibility requirements, the application process, and more. They will also talk about the program requirements as outlined in the 2019 Funding Opportunity Announcement published on Dec. 12.

Click here to register. If you are unable to attend, a recording may be available afterward.

Speaker of Nebraska Legislature proposes increasing number of state senators to help rural districts

Jim Scheer, the Speaker of the Nebraska Legislature, has proposed increasing the number of senators in the state's unique, unicameral body, Paul Hammel reports for the Omaha World-Herald.

The state legislature now has 49 senators, the smallest number of such representatives in the nation. Scheer "said that allowing the body to expand to up to 55 senators would not only ease the process of redistricting after the 2020 Census but would also ensure that some rural districts don’t grow so large geographically as populations shift that constituents lose contact with their state senator," Hammel reports.

The state constitution requires districts to be evenly divided by population and calls for counties to be left as whole as possible, which can make for huge rural legislative districts that sometimes dip into suburban or urban areas. Scheer said some legislative districts in the central and western parts of the state spread over hundreds of miles, and that the problem is expected to worsen when the Legislature draws up new districts in 2021, Hammel reports.

While increasing the number of senators would not necessarily preserve rural influence, the mere fact that more individuals are in the Legislature could avoid a possible reduction of rural voices. 

How Sandy Hook helped alter the gun-control conversation: more state and local gun-control laws in the last 7 years

A snapshot of the range of gun-control laws in the states as of 2018.
(Business Insider map; click to enlarge it)

It's been seven years and two days since 26 people — 20 of them children — were killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. The shooting was so shocking that it touched off a major shift in the national conversation about gun control and has led to new laws in many states and localities, Reid Wilson reports for The Hill.

"In the years since Sandy Hook, 21 state legislatures have expanded background-check requirements on various types of gun sales," Wilson reports. "Seventeen states, mostly those controlled by Democrats, have passed red-flag laws that allow law enforcement to take guns away from someone who may pose a danger to themselves or others. And 28 states have enacted laws requiring those convicted of domestic abuse to give up their firearms."

The move toward more gun-control measures has also sparked pro-gun rights measures in more conservative states and localities. "Several states have passed measures expanding the right to carry concealed firearms, even without a permit, and others are moving to allow firearms on school grounds as part of a response to mass shootings," Wilson reports. "In the last seven years, the NRA counts more than 460 pro-gun measures that have passed state legislatures."

The biggest change is that guns are no longer the "third rail of American politics," Wilson writes. Gun control used to be mainly a rural vs. urban issue, and Reid notes that rural Democrats were once the source of some of the most vehement gun-rights legislation. But gun control has become increasingly a partisan issue over the past few decades, and these days, "backing stricter gun laws, once a sure path to defeat in rural and suburban communities, has become a winning issue — or at least a neutral issue — for some candidates."

That might have to do with the increased political spending from anti-gun and gun-safety groups as the NRA becomes less popular (and has less money to spend on lobbying). "In 2018, gun-control groups spent more than the NRA on campaigns and elections for the first time in recent memory," Wilson reports. "The following year, those groups outspent the NRA by a huge margin in Virginia, home of the NRA’s headquarters."

Agriculture-purchase details in trade deal remain murky

U.S. and Chinese negotiators unveiled an interim trade agreement last week, but some trade issues still remain unresolved, and the details of the agreement are unclear. The 86-page agreement, which hasn't been made public yet, is expected to be signed in January, Evelyn Cheng reports for CNBC.

Because trade issues between the two nations are so contentious and wide-ranging, negotiators agreed to break the talks into phases. Both countries announced they had agreed on a "phase one" deal that includes agricultural purchases, which could boost President Trump's re-election bid. China reportedly promised to buy $40 billion in U.S. farm goods per year; Trump said he expected that to increase to $50 billion "pretty soon" and "U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer told reporters that China would buy at least $16 billion more agricultural goods in each of the next two years. The report said that could bring total purchases to near $50 billion in 2020 and 2021," Cheng reports.

But economists from Japanese finance company Nomura Holdings Inc., including its chief China economist, Ting Lu, said over the weekend, "That scale of purchases seems implausible and Chinese officials were reluctant to mention any specific target during their press conference," Cheng reports.

Both nations are making conciliatory gestures. "The U.S. held off raising tariffs on Chinese goods on Sunday, and Beijing did not go ahead with planned retaliatory tariffs," Cheng notes. "China has also been increasing its purchases of American soybeans this year, despite an overall expected decline in Chinese demand for the product, according to the U.S. Soybean Export Council."

However, "It’s still unclear how and when the U.S. will roll back other tariffs, a condition for a phase-one deal that the Chinese side has firmly maintained," Cheng reports. "The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative said in a statement that the United States will keep 25 percent tariffs on about $250 billion of Chinese imports, along with 7.5% duties on roughly $120 billion of Chinese imports."

"Lighthizer said Beijing has also agreed to reduce longstanding non-tariff barriers to U.S. farm exports, including trade restrictions on beef, poultry, seafood, dairy, rice, infant formula, animal feed, pet foods, feed additives and a variety of biotechnology products," Ryan McCrimmon reports for Politico's Morning Agriculture. "Farmers have long been frustrated by China’s slow approval process for approving biotech crops, which has impeded U.S. exports of certain corn and soybean varieties."

USDA releases 2019 report on family farms

On Friday the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Economic Research Service released a new report with updated data on family farms in the United States. "America's Diverse Family Farms: 2019 Edition" aims to give stakeholders a more granular view of farm life in 2018, since huge farming operations can skew averages. The report is based on a sample of about 15,800 farms.

"In 2018, the average value of production on the 2 million U.S. farms amounted to $174,038," the report says. "Few farms, however, are near the average; half of farms had production valued at $6,000 or less, while more than half of all production occurred on farms with at least $1 million of agricultural production."

USDA defines a family farm as one where the principal operator, and possibly some relatives, own the majority of the business and make most day-to-day decisions. Farm size is measured by gross cash farm income, which includes sales of crops and livestock, government payments, fees from production contracts, and other farm-related income. Here are a few highlights from the report:

• Family farms accounted for 98 percent of farms and 88% of production in 2018.
• Large-scale family farms accounted for the largest share of production, at 46%.
• About 90% of U.S. farms were classified as small, meaning they have a gross cash farm income of less than $350,000.
• Small farms accounted for 48% of the land operated by farms. 
• Between 58% and 81% of small family farms, depending on type, were deemed at high risk of financial problems. However, the report notes that the operators of many small farms don't consider that their primary occupation and receive substantial income from off-farm sources.
• Midsize and large-scale family farms accounted for 82% of cotton production, 74% of cash grains/soybeans production, and 66% of hog production.

Read the full report here.

FCC OKs 3-digit number for suicide and mental-health crisis calls, to start in 18 months; could also help thwart overdoses

The Federal Communications Commission voted unanimously Thursday to move ahead with a plan to set up a suicide-prevention and mental-health crisis hotline. It's similar to the 911 hotline, but "instead of dialing the police, the number would connect callers to experts in suicide prevention and mental health," Colin Dwyer reports for NPR. "The proposed number, 988, would link callers to an already existing network of crisis centers around the country set up by the Department of Health and Human Services."

The network of 163 call centers can already be reached through 1-800-273-TALK, or online, but the FCC believes that dialing 988 will be easier to remember, will make suicide prevention efforts more effective, and will reduce the stigma surrounding suicide and mental-health conditions, the FCC said in a study prepared in collaboration with the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. "Congress requested the report as part of the National Suicide Hotline Improvement Act, passed and signed into law last year in a rare display of bipartisan agreement," Dwyer notes.

It could be a while before the 988 hotline goes live; the public comment notice proposes an 18-month time frame for the project. Right now, the proposal is open to public comment, then the commission will finalize the rules, Dwyer reports.

The notion of treating mental-health crises more like physical-health crises seems to be catching on, as more lawmakers and stakeholders recognize that stigma is a major barrier to treatment. In Kentucky, the chair of the state House Health and Welfare Committee, Rep. Kim Moser, has filed a bill to create a program to train people in first aid for mental-health and substance-use crisis situations, Melissa Patrick of Kentucky Health News reports.

Dec. 19 webinar to discuss 2020 agriculture outlook

A free webinar on Dec. 19 at 12:30 p.m. ET will discuss the 2020 agricultural economic forecast.

Purdue University ag economists Jim Mintert and Michael Langemeier will go over updated corn and soybean supply and demand estimates and price projections, marketing strategies for 2019 and 2020 crops, profit projections for 2020, and the relative merits of signing up for the different types of federal crop insurance.

The one-hour webinar is free, but registration is required. If you are unable to attend, the hosts say they will email you a recording afterward. Click here to register or for more information.

Rural Minn. woman sues after two pharmacists refuse to fill morning-after pill prescription because of religious beliefs

McGregor in Aitkin County (Wikipedia)

A rural Minnesota woman has filed suit after two pharmacists refused to sell her emergency contraception because of their religious beliefs. She says the issue highlights how religious-objection rules hurt rural women, Katie Shepherd reports for The Washington Post.

Andrew Anderson, 39, lives in McGregor, a town of about 400 people. She and her longtime partner have one biological child and four adopted or foster children. When their condom broke in January 2019, Anderson called her gynecologist the next morning and received a prescription for Ella, an emergency contraceptive. The prescription was sent to Thrifty White Pharmacy, the only one in McGregor.

The pharmacist at Thrifty White, George Badeaux, refused to fill Anderson's prescription because he said it would be against his religious beliefs. Badeaux, who is also a pastor at a nearby church, advised her not to go to a nearby pharmacy because the employees there would also probably refuse to fill the prescription, Shepherd reports.

"Anderson did not give up. She drove about 20 miles to a CVS pharmacy in a neighboring town, where another pharmacist declined to fill her prescription," Shepherd writes. "Anderson said that pharmacist, who is not named in the suit, told her the pharmacy did not have Ella in stock and could not get it from a wholesale provider in time for her to take the pill, which must be taken within five days of unprotected sex.

Anderson said the CVS pharmacist called a Walgreens in Brainerd, more than 50 miles from her home, and told her that it didn't have the pill. However, when Anderson called the Walgreens herself, the pharmacist there confirmed that the CVS pharmacist had just called, and said the store did have Ella in stock and would be happy to fill her prescription the next day, Shepherd reports. She and her young son made a three-hour round trip in a blizzard to fill the prescription, he writes.

Anderson sued Badeaux, Thrifty White, and the unnamed CVS pharmacist who refused to fill her prescription and misinformed her about its availability at the Brainerd Walgreens. She notes in her lawsuit that, though Minnesota allows pharmacists to refuse to fill emergency contraception prescriptions because of personal beliefs, the law requires the objecting pharmacist to help the patient find another way to fill the prescription, and neither pharmacist did that, Shepherd reports.

"The lawsuit argues that refusing to provide women access to the morning-after pill is a form of sex discrimination and violates people’s civil rights," Shepherd reports. "Anderson said she believes rural women are particularly at risk to have their medical needs overshadowed by a pharmacist’s personal beliefs because there are so few places to buy medication."

More farmers believe in climate change, but it may not change their votes; Dems try to appeal to them anyway

Washington Post map based on National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration data

The U.S. is beginning to see extreme effects from climate change, as a multimedia piece from The Washington Post illustrates. A United Nations climate change panel warns, "If Earth heats up by an average of 2 degrees Celsius, virtually all the world’s coral reefs will die; retreating ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica could unleash massive sea-level rise; and summertime Arctic sea ice, a shield against further warming, would begin to disappear," the Post reports. "But global warming does not heat the world evenly. A Washington Post analysis of more than a century of National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration temperature data across the Lower 48 states and 3,107 counties has found that major areas are nearing or have already crossed the 2-degree Celsius mark." That affects everything from agriculture zones and invasive species to disappearing farmland.

According to another recent Post story, climate change will likely trigger extreme heat waves in the "breadbasket regions of western North America."

Partly because of this year's terrible weather, more farmers now believe in climate change, Ryan McCrimmon reports for Politico's "Morning Agriculture." But, a recent study found that increasing belief in climate change may not prod staunchly Republican farmers to vote for a Democrat, Bryce Oates reports for The Daily Yonder: "Instead, farmers tackle to the impact of climate change as a business challenge that they address through standard farming practices, like applying more fertilizer after heavy rains." Nevertheless, Democratic presidential candidates are trying to appeal to rural voters by touting plans to give farmers incentives for adopting greener practices, notes Editor Art Cullen of The Storm Lake Times in Iowa.

Pro-rural bias of the Constitution stands in the way of Trump's Senate removal after likely House impeachment

Estimated net support for impeachment
(The Economist chart; click to enlarge)

The pro-rural bias of our Constitution helped elect President Trump, and now it's insulating him and his party from removal by the Senate after likely impeachment by the House, The Economist magazine reports.

Trump won the election despite losing the popular vote by 3 million because of the Electoral College, which has a slight rural bias. It "is only mildly anti-majoritarian, [but] the Senate often deviates wildly from the popular will," the magazine says. "Because each state is weighted equally, voters in less-populous states are over-represented relative to those in large ones. Now that Republicans derive an outsize portion of their support from rural voters, their share of senators exceeds their share of total votes cast in Senate elections."

The Economist notes that the Senate would still not likely have the two-thirds majority needed to convict Trump even if it were apportioned by population like the House of Representatives: "However, if the chamber reflected public opinion more closely, some Republican members seeking re-election might feel obliged to support his removal."

As the system stands now, Senate Republicans are likely to benefit from backing Trump, The Economist says. Researchers from the publication base that opinion on a statistical estimation, which you can read about in the article (along with plenty of great charts); the bottom line is this: In 29 of the 50 states, a plurality of voters are estimated to oppose impeachment. The lack of a clear majority opinion, overall, means Republican senators have little reason to oppose impeachment.

Sinclair axes 'must run' political segments for affiliates

Sinclair Broadcast Group, which serves much of rural America, has been criticized for requiring affiliate stations to air conservative political content, sometimes not labeled as such, including segments by former presidential adviser Boris Epshteyn. The company initially responded by hiring a liberal commentator, Ameshia Cross, in January and requiring her content to be aired as well.

But now Sinclair says it's ending the "must-run" political segments for Epshteyn and Cross. "The move is part of a company-wide effort to move away from political commentary in favor of investigative journalism, the network said Wednesday," Claire Atkinson reports for NBC News.

A former Sinclair producer, speaking on condition of anonymity, told NBC that, if Sinclair wants to truly look impartial, it must "abolish the whole concept of must-run news stories . . . Getting rid of commentary is a good first step, but securing trust among viewers, you have to get rid of mandated stories."

U.S. coal employment decline led by Appalachia

U.S. Energy Information Administration chart; click on the image to enlarge it.

Coal mining employment in the U.S. has declined 42 percent since 2011 as coal demand has decreased. Appalachia has by far the largest share of coal miners among the three U.S. coal regions, but it has also seen the most dramatic drop in coal jobs, according to an article about one facet of the U.S. Energy Information Administration's Annual Coal Report. Nationwide, U.S. coal mining employment fell from a high of 92,000 in 2011 to 54,000 in 2018. In Appalachia, it was almost cut in half, falling from 60,269 in 2011 to 30,620 in 2018.

"Appalachian mines tend to be smaller than mines in the Interior and Western regions and to use labor-intensive underground mining techniques, as opposed to machinery-intensive longwall mining and surface mining operations," the report notes. "A slight increase in coal-mining employment in the Appalachia region from 2016 to 2018 corresponded to an increase in coal exports because this region is the dominant source of coal shipped overseas." But most export coal is metallurgical, used in steelmaking, not thermal, which is burned in power plants to make electricity.

The number of operating coal mines has also declined over the past decade, with Appalachia also seeing the biggest drop. And though coal production declined nationally, and Western coal fields have long been the most productive,the production decline was concentrated in Appalachia, which lost almost half its production. "More than half of the region’s mines have closed since 2008, and production has fallen from 390 million tons in 2008 to 200 million tons in 2018," the report says.

Quick hits: Podcast talks about HIV in rural America; coal company that hired laid off Blackjewel miners lays off some

Here's a roundup of stories with rural resonance; if you do or see similar work that should be shared on The Rural Blog, email us at heather.chapman@uky.edu.

The coal company that hired some laid off Blackjewel coal miners has now laid off some of them. Read more here.

Most Americans say they want more oversight of large-scale livestock operations, according to a new poll. Read more here.

A new podcast discusses HIV's threat to rural America. Read more here.

Oil and gas sites release enormous amounts of methane, which contributes to climate change, but it's hard for people to see the phenomenon because the gas is invisible. A crew from The New York Times used an infrared video camera to make methane leaks visible, revealing a troubling amount of pollution. Read more here.

New albums from rural Kentucky artists shed light on the soul of rural America, says Paste Magazine. Read more here.

Because we're not all doom and gloom here at The Rural Blog, here's some fun stuff: a church in southeastern Kentucky created a fake ad for the Amazon Echo: Eastern Kentucky Edition. Does it play on rural stereotypes? Yes. Is it hilarious? Also yes. And, this blogger with Harlan County roots can confirm that a few parts hit pretty close to home. Watch the video here.

Privately funded nonprofit is building huge, controversial wildlife sanctuary in Montana

American Prairie Reserve's purchased and leased land is shown in green with white borders, adjacent to Upper Missouri Breaks National Monument and Charles M. Russell National Wildlife Refuge. Together, these parcels complete a network of land larger than Yellowstone National Park, the second-largest national park in the Lower 48 states (NPR map)

"A privately funded, nonprofit organization is creating a 3.2-million-acre wildlife sanctuary, American Prairie Reserve, in northeastern Montana, an area long known as cattle country," Nate Hegyi reports for NPR, with support from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting. "The reserve is facing fierce opposition from many locals because . . . the organization is slowly purchasing ranches from willing sellers, phasing out the cows and replacing them with wild bison. Those private properties are then stitched together with vast tracts of neighboring public lands to create one giant, rewilded prairie. The organization has purchased close to 30 properties so far, but it needs at least 50 more."

Local ranch owners who aren't willing to sell worry that they won't be able to hold out, as land prices increase and many ranchers have a hard time finding an heir to pass their land to when they retire. But wildlife advocates from other states and countries have given the project a lot of attention and financial support because, at 5,000 square miles, the sanctuary will be the largest in the contiguous U.S. once completed. Hegyi reports.

"The project's goal is to rewild this swath of the Great Plains and return all the animals that lived on this landscape more than a century ago, before white settlers arrived. Wolves, grizzly bears, thousands of genetically pure, wild bison," Hegyi reports. "The reserve is a new kind of national park, one that's free to the public and privately funded through both small donors and some of the wealthiest people in the world."

Sean Gerrity founded APR more than 18 years ago after he moved back home to Montana after running a Silicon Valley tech firm. "This wildlife habitat is going away and there is almost none left," he told Hegyi. "This is the last bit in the Great Plains, for the most part, where we can do a project of this size."

Newspaper's in-depth watchdog piece on worst U.S. prison riot in 25 years explains system flaws that led to it

A guard was trapped in a prison control room for more than eight
hours that night. (Post and Courier photo by Andrew Whitaker)

As states have built more prisons in rural areas and metropolitan newspapers have cut back their regional reporting, prison goings-on have probably gotten less attention, but  The Post and Courier in Charleston, S.C., did an in-depth investigation into the worst violence in a U.S. prison in 25 years, showing how flaws in the prison system led to it.

Seven men died on April 15, 2018, at the Lee Correctional Institution in Bishopville. The article by Jennifer Berry Hawes and Stephen Hobbs is accompanied by a detailed timeline, with background information, illustrations, photos, videos and audio from the riot.

To understand how two prisoners crossed paths and sparked the historic night of violence, "You must understand a crisis that prompted the mass transfer of men into Lee," the reporters write. "You also must understand the gangs among them that control violence, money and contraband — which is to say, power. And a door-locking system those men could easily defeat. And a security staff with little control. And so many hopeless, angry men." 

The paper also notes that no charges have been filed for the deaths and injuries, and that there has been little accountability or change in the prison system. It's a worthy read.

Though new SNAP rules target able-bodied people without dependents, those with informal dependents could suffer

Changes to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program could have a substantial ripple effect in a small town. In Letcher County, Kentucky, pop. 25,000, the new rules could cost up to 400 residents their SNAP benefits and could potentially affect their families, Sam Adams reports for The Mountain Eagle in Whitesburg, Ky. The piece is an excellent example of localizing a national story.

Letcher County, Kentucky (Wikipedia map)

The changes, set to take affect April 1, are expected to cost more than 3 million Americans their SNAP benefits. Rural areas could be disproportionately affected since rural households are more likely to use the program, formerly known as food stamps. In 2018, 85 of the 100 counties that relied most on SNAP were rural.

The changes have widespread support because they target able-bodied adults without dependents who are under 50 and don't work 20 hours a week. But many "ABAWDs" still have unofficial dependents, such as elderly parents, step-children, a spouse who's between jobs, or children who live with another parent, says Dustin Pugel, an analyst at the Kentucky Center for Economic Policy. "If you take SNAP away from one person, it affects the food budget for the entire family," he told Adams.

An article in The Atlantic affirms Pugel's observation on informal dependents, though in an urban setting. "The administration paints ABAWDs as a group of people who can justifiably be cut off from assistance because they ought to be working, Maggie Dickinson writes. "But taking people who are unemployed off SNAP often does harm to more than just those who directly receive food assistance. Many of these people share their benefits with their family and social networks, including children and elderly family members. The ripple effects of the planned cuts will hurt this larger group of people too."

Dickinson ran a hunger outreach program in New York City during the last recession; the city was one of the few places that enforced SNAP work requirements then, giving her an on-the-ground view of how ABAWDs often used their benefits. "I met lots of men who used their SNAP benefits to feed their children. Many of them lived with their kids, but many did not, and the government categorized this latter group as single adults without dependents," Dickinson writes. "Among the people I encountered, these men reported some of the most severe problems with hunger, because they used their meager benefits to fulfill family obligations that the welfare administration did not recognize."

In Letcher County, the impact of the changes is still unknown. Other state and local policies may help. The county has a waiver that lets it give benefits to people who qualify for other income-based benefits, and the local farmers' market allows SNAP recipients to buy up to $40 of food for $20 in SNAP money. "The market also participates in a 'Farmacy' program with Mountain Comprehensive Health Corp., through which people with certain illnesses who meet income requirements obtain vouchers from their doctors to buy fresh food at the farmers' market," Adams reports.

Dec. 17 webinar will discuss challenges rural seniors face with social isolation and getting reliable medical care

Rural senior citizens routinely face problems with obtaining transportation to reliable medical care, being able to pay for it, and social isolation. The Rural Health Information Hub will present a free webinar at 1 p.m. ET Dec. 17 to discuss how such challenges can be overcome in order to provide supportive services and caregiving for rural seniors.

The presenters will also talk about policy recommendations for improving the lives of rural seniors, as detailed in a report from the National Advisory Committee on Rural Health and Human Services to the Department of Health and Human Services.

The webinar is expected to last about an hour, and a recording will be made available afterward. Click here for more information or to register.

Report: cutting black lung funding will cost taxpayers billions

A recent cut to the tax coal companies pay to help miners with black-lung disease will cost taxpayers at least $15 billion by 2050, according to a new report from national watchdog group Taxpayers for Common Sense.

"An excise tax rate on mined coal that funds the Black Lung Disability Trust Fund expired at the beginning of 2019 due to inaction by Congress. That led to a reduction in the amount coal companies pay into the fund, which pays benefits and medical bills for miners diagnosed with black-lung disease," Dylan Lovan reports for The Associated Press. "An excise tax rate of $1.10 per ton of underground mined coal was cut by more than half to about 50 cents in the new year. The fund took in about $450 million in revenue in fiscal year 2017."

Autumn Hanna, vice president of Taxpayers for Common Sense, said that Congress was shifting billions of dollars in liability from coal companies to taxpayers; the report said the fund's debt could reach $26 billion by 2050. The Labor Department confirmed earlier this year that a shortfall in the Black Lung Trust Fund would be dealt with by borrowing from the U.S. Treasury, Lovan reports. The fund was at least $4.3 billion in debt in July.

Black-lung disease has killed about 78,000 since 1968, and has seen a major uptick in recent years among younger miners, Lovan reports. However, there has been little movement on meaningful improvement to safety policies meant to protect miners from the silica and coal dust exposure that causes black-lung disease.

North Dakota county votes 3-2 to keep accepting refugees

Burleigh County citizens, many of them refugees themselves, waited in line to speak at the county commission meeting on Monday about whether the county should allow more refugees to settle there. (Bismarck Tribune photo by Will Kincaid)

In September, President Trump signed an executive order requiring state and county governments to give written consent before refugees can be placed in their jurisdictions. Last week, Burleigh County, North Dakota (pop. 81,000 and home of the state capital of Bismarck, pop. 73,000), was poised to become the first county in the nation to reject them, Andy Field reports for the Bismarck Tribune.

Many expected the five county commissioners to bar further refugees, but then people started showing up at the commission chambers. A lot of people. The commissioners had to reschedule the meeting for Dec. 9 in a larger venue, but even that meeting turned out to be standing-room only, Antonia Farzan reports for The Washington Post.

Locals saw the vote as a referendum on their community's values, Farzan reports, and some speakers said they worried that Bismarck would be seen as bigoted if they voted against accepting refugees, Farzan reports. Others who spoke in favor of the ban noted that the recent oil boom has already strained local resources and caused an increase in crime and homelessness.

Bismarck's mayor, Steve Bakken, supported banning further refugees because of financial considerations. But Republican Gov. Doug Burnum agreed in November to accept more, saying the state's severe workforce shortage and would be helped by well-vetted refugees, Farzan reports.

After nearly four hours of debate from dozens of citizens, the commissioners voted 3-2 to continue allowing refugees to settle in the county. "Had the vote gone the other way, Burleigh County would have been the first county in the United States to block refugee resettlement," Field reports.

"The decision largely carried symbolic resonance. The Trump administration has slashed the number of refugee arrivals nationwide, and Burleigh County, which has roughly 95,000 residents, took in just 24 refugees during fiscal year 2019, according to the North Dakota governor’s office," Farzan reports. "The community . . . is slated to receive a similar number of refugees in fiscal year 2020, and the measure that passed on Monday caps the number of new arrivals at 25."