As the U.S. economy slipped into recession in 2001, an already lackluster rural economy lost even more steam. Since 1995, job growth in rural areas has trailed growth in metro areas. But in the wake of last year’s terrorist attacks, national recession, and falling food demand, job rolls in...

Entrepreneurs create economic growth in their communities by forming new firms. Each year during the past decade, more than half a million businesses were started that added new jobs in the United States. In the 1990s, during the longest economic expansion in the United States economy, the...

The rural economy was strong in 2007. Record farm incomes were fueled by rising ethanol demand and by stronger export demand, which was driven in part by a weaker dollar. Farmers used the year’s higher profits both to strengthen their financial conditions and to boost investment in land and...

Economic headlines in rural America were mostly positive in 2003, especially in the farm sector. The farm economy broke out of its drought-induced recession. Low global crop supplies, strong demand, and high prices underpinned strong gains in U.S. farm income. Meanwhile, the nation’s economic...

The rural economy began 2006 facing an uncertain outlook. For two years, rural growth had been unusually strong. But rising energy prices threatened to stall the expansion. Many businesses had already been weakened by high input costs, and many households were feeling squeezed by higher costs...

Rural policy should encourage more regional partnering among rural firms, communities, and governments. That was the conclusion reached by a dozen policy experts and 200 rural leaders from throughout the nation who gathered at the Center’s third annual rural policy conference, The New Power of...

A growing chorus of rural leaders agrees that new opportunities are on the horizon for rural America. Economic consolidation and outmigration need not be rural America’s future. The question most rural regions now face is this: How to claim the new opportunities? At root, this question is all...

Rural America will remember 2005 as a year of drought, hurricanes, and surging gas prices. To be sure, some regions of the country faced devastating natural catastrophes. Yet, these catastrophes did not stop the farm sector from posting another banner income year—nor did they stop the nonfarm...