There have been a lot of misconceptions about the gaps between urban and rural America. For many decades, conventional wisdom was that the nation’s cities were unsafe pits of despair, where people were piled into crumbling tenements and pollution would kill you slowly if crime didn’t get to you first, while rural areas were Main Street U.S.A., the province of upstanding farmers and merchants. Somewhere in the last decade, though, those stereotypes got turned on their heads: cities became the glittering but overpriced domain of millennial hipsters and tech bros, while the rural areas became associated with empty downtowns, shuttered factories, and the opioid-addled long-term unemployed, with rural despair peaking in 2016 to the extent it could improbably elect Donald Trump.
Needless to say, none of those exaggerations really have much to do with reality. If you stop and look at economic data, rural and urban areas have their own sets of problems. But if you look at them in total around the country, unemployment rates aren’t significantly different, with urban areas running at 4.8 percent and rural areas at 5.3 percent. 2015 Census estimates find that median household income is only slightly higher in urban areas ($54,296) than in rural areas ($52,386), while poverty rates are only slightly higher in urban areas—where there’s a higher level of inequality—than in rural areas (16.0 percent urban, 13.3 percent rural).
Instead, the most significant differences are cultural more so than economic, and that’s probably more of what drove the electoral trends of 2016, which saw the nation’s major metropolitan areas becoming even bluer and the rural areas becoming even redder. A poll released several weeks ago by the Kaiser Family Foundation for the Washington Post focused on the urban/rural divide and delves much more deeply than the standard poll into these cultural questions. It’s interesting enough, and tells us a lot about what did and didn’t drive rural voters in 2016, that it’s worth unpacking in some detail.
Let’s start the debunking by looking at some of the topics where—contrary to what you might expect—urban and rural areas have a lot in common. For instance, the poll doesn’t bear out the idea that rural areas are adrift in a sea of economic pessimism. The poll finds no significant difference on questions like whether residents have recently been worried about paying their bills.
Q56. Was there any time during the last 12 months when you were worried that income from all the members of your household would not be enough to meet all your expenses and bills, or not?
Total: 39 yes, 61 no
Rural: 42 yes, 57 no
Suburban: 37 yes, 62 no
Urban: 40 yes, 60 no
The poll also finds no significant difference on questions designed to elicit pessimism concerning future opportunities. (In fact, it looks like urbanites feel slightly worse on the question of future job availability!)
Q7. And looking ahead 10 years, do you expect the availability of jobs where you live to get (better), get (worse), or stay about the same?
Total: 40 get better, 15 get worse, 43 stay about the same, 2 don’t know
Rural: 38 get better, 15 get worse, 45 stay about the same, 1 don’t know
Suburban: 41 get better, 11 get worse, 45 stay about the same, 3 don’t know
Urban: 38 get better, 20 get worse, 39 stay about the same, 2 don’t know
Q8. When your children are the age you are now, do you think their standard of living will be (better), (worse) or about the same as yours is now?
Total: 42 better, 26 worse, 28 about the same, 3 don’t know
Rural: 43 better, 24 worse, 29 about the same, 3 don’t know
Suburban: 41 better, 27 worse, 28 about the same, 2 don’t know
Urban: 41 better, 26 worse, 29 about the same, 3 don’t know
Questions about actual, current employment superficially make it look like things are worse in rural areas, but that’s only if you fall into the Republican trap of thinking that NILFs (people “not in labor force”) fall into that category because they’ve given up hope on seeking a job. Instead, the lower employment levels in rural areas are precisely because there are much higher levels of retirees living in rural areas (in other words, if senior citizens aren’t compelled to seek jobs, that should be a sign of progress!).
Q27. What best describes your employment situation today?
Total: 50 employed full-time, 11 employed part-time, 4 unemployed and currently seeking employment, 1 unemployed and not seeking employment, 5 student, 17 retired, 7 on disability, 4 stay at home parent
Rural: 46 employed full-time, 10 employed part-time, 5 unemployed and currently seeking employment, 2 unemployed and not seeking employment, 4 student, 22 retired, 8 on disability, 4 stay at home parent
Suburban: 51 employed full-time, 11 employed part-time, 3 unemployed and currently seeking employment, 1 unemployed and not seeking employment, 5 student, 17 retired, 8 on disability, 4 stay at home parent
Urban: 54 employed full-time, 10 employed part-time, 5 unemployed and currently seeking employment, 1 unemployed and not seeking employment, 7 student, 14 retired, 7 on disability, 2 stay at home parent
Despite the genuine concerns about the increasing rates of addiction to opioids, this is by no means a rural-only problem (despite the media’s tendency to present it that way), and the polls results bear this out.
Q67. To the best of your knowledge, do you have any family or close friends who are or have been addicted to prescription pain pills or heroin, or not?
Total: 27 yes, 73 no
Rural: 24 yes, 75 no
Suburban: 28 yes, 72 no
Urban: 26 yes, 73 no
And perhaps the biggest contradiction to the general hype of rural areas being a pit of woe is the poll’s very first question, which indicates that rural residents are actually appreciably happier than suburban or urban residents. (It’s worth noting that religiosity tends to correlate with self-reported happiness, and, of course, it’s difficult if not impossible to prize apart the question of self-reported happiness vs. actual happiness.)
Q1. Taken all together, how would you say things are these days--would you say that you are very happy, pretty happy, or not too happy?
Total: 20 very happy, 54 pretty happy, 24 not too happy
Rural: 24 very happy, 53 pretty happy, 22 not too happy
Suburban: 18 very happy, 54 pretty happy, 26 not too happy
Urban: 20 very happy, 56 pretty happy, 23 not too happy
Now, let’s switch over to looking at some of the questions on which there were some significant variations between rural and urban answers. As stated before, these are largely cultural rather than economic questions, and they tend to get at the question of not just the ideal scope of government, but perceptions about who benefits from help from that government.
Rural dwellers are significantly more likely to blame the poor for their situations, and feel that government aid programs are the province of the irresponsible. (There’s, of course, a chicken-and-egg question here, whether rural residents are increasingly moving toward the Republican position on this because that was already what they genuinely felt, or they’re increasingly feeling this way because they’re adapting their belief system to fit that of the party they and their neighbors are increasingly joining … and because that’s what the media outlets they disproportionately consume are telling them is the problem.)
Q17. In your opinion, which is generally more often to blame if a person is poor? (Lack of effort on their own part), or (Difficult circumstances beyond their control)?
Total: 42 lack of effort, 53 difficult circumstances, 4 don’t know
Rural: 49 lack of effort, 46 difficult circumstances, 4 don’t know
Suburban: 42 lack of effort, 52 difficult circumstances, 4 don’t know
Urban: 37 lack of effort, 56 difficult circumstances, 5 don’t know
Q47. Which of these two situations do you think happens more often in America today—(needy people going without government help), or (irresponsible people getting government help they don't deserve)?
Total: 40 needy people, 55 irresponsible people, 4 don’t know
Rural: 32 needy people, 64 irresponsible people, 4 don’t know
Suburban: 40 needy people, 55 irresponsible people, 4 don’t know
Urban: 47 needy people, 48 irresponsible people, 3 don’t know
Rural residents also are much more likely to feel that immigrants are a burden on American society, that immigrants aren’t doing enough to adapt to their new surroundings, and that the real problem in current society is white residents losing out because of preferences for blacks and Latinos.
Q49. Which comes closer to your view--even if neither is exactly right?
Total: 62 immigrants today strengthen our country because of their hard work and talents, 29 immigrants today are a burden on our country because they take our jobs, housing and health care
Rural: 48 strengthen, 42 burden
Suburban: 62 strengthen, 31 burden
Urban: 71 strengthen, 16 burden
Q50. Do you think most immigrants coming to the U.S. in the last 10 years are doing enough to adapt to the American way of life, or not?
Total: 55 yes, 39 no
Rural: 46 yes, 49 no
Suburban: 55 yes, 40 no
Urban: 62 yes, 31 no
Q55. Which of these do you think is the bigger problem in this country—(blacks and Hispanics losing out because of preferences for whites), or (whites losing out because of preferences for blacks and Hispanics)?
Total: 42 blacks and Hispanics losing out, 28 whites losing out, 20 don’t know
Rural: 34 blacks and Hispanics losing out, 34 whites losing out, 21 don’t know
Suburban: 37 blacks and Hispanics losing out, 27 whites losing out, 23 don’t know
Urban: 56 blacks and Hispanics losing out, 23 whites losing out, 15 don’t know
The poll also finds more general anti-city (and anti-secular and anti-media, something that probably gets associated with cities) biases that don’t even directly address issues of race and poverty. (Somewhat surprisingly, across the board you see only a very small number of people familiar with the way in which tax dollars flow out of the cities, where economic activity is concentrated, and instead to the rural areas.)
Q44. Do you think the federal government does more to help (people in rural areas and small towns), more to help (people living in and around large cities), or does it help both about equally?
Total: 4 rural areas, 45 large cities, 46 both about equally
Rural: 4 rural areas, 56 large cities, 37 both about equally
Suburban: 4 rural areas, 43 large cities, 48 both about equally
Urban: 4 rural areas, 40 large cities, 49 both about equally
Q54. Do you think that Christian values are under attack in America today, or not?
Total: 51 yes, 47 no
Rural: 59 yes, 39 no
Suburban: 52 yes, 46 no
Urban: 44 yes, 53 no
Q26. How much do you think (INSERT ITEM) respects people like you? d. The news media
Total: 15 a lot, 30 some, 25 only a little, 29 not at all
Rural: 10 a lot, 27 some, 25 only a little, 35 not at all
Suburban: 17 a lot, 30 some, 23 only a little, 29 not at all
Urban: 14 a lot, 32 some, 27 only a little, 25 not at all
The end of the poll also looks at typical demographic categories; it should come as no surprise that people in rural areas are disproportionately whiter and less college-educated than the population at large. (They find that, in their sample, rural areas are 76 percent non-Hispanic white, 8 percent black, and 8 percent Hispanic; urban areas are 44 percent white, 15 percent black, and 25 percent Hispanic. Meanwhile 19 percent of rural residents have a college degree or more, while 32 percent of urban residents do.)
However, they also ask some other demographic questions that shed a little more light on what else might be shaping voters’ opinions and worldviews: rural voters tend to have not moved as far from home, tend not to have a diverse set of acquaintances, and tend to be more actively religious. In other words, they don’t have the same range of experiences that would expose them to a wider variety of people and perhaps humanize those who are different from them.
Q2. Do you live in the community in which you grew up, or not?
Total: 33 yes, 67 no
Rural: 42 yes, 58 no
Suburban: 29 yes, 71 no
Urban: 30 yes, 70 no
Q74. How many of your close friends are of a DIFFERENT race than you--Most of them, some of them, hardly any of them, or none of them?
Total: 20 most, 53 some, 17 hardly any, 7 none
Rural: 14 most, 49 some, 22 hardly any, 14 none
Suburban: 18 most, 57 some, 17 hardly any, 5 none
Urban: 29 most, 49 some, 15 hardly any, 5 none
RELIG. What is your present religion, if any?
Total: 28 evangelical, 27 mainline Protestant, 20 Catholic, 2 other Christian, 16 atheist/agnostic/none, 8 other
Rural: 34 evangelical, 34 mainline Protestant, 15 Catholic, 2 other Christian, 12 atheist/agnostic/none, 3 other
Suburban: 27 evangelical, 26 mainline Protestant, 22 Catholic, 2 other Christian, 12 atheist/agnostic/none, 11 other
Urban: 26 evangelical, 25 mainline Protestant, 20 Catholic, 1 other Christian, 22 atheist/agnostic/none, 7 other
Keep in mind that recent studies have shown that voters with that set of beliefs on race, religion, and culture were instrumental in getting Donald Trump elected in 2016. They’re by no means a majority of all of his supporters, but these largely rural and poorly-educated voters were disproportionately among the ranks of the Obama-to-Trump flippers who made the difference in flipping key Midwestern states that tipped the Electoral College in his direction.
The point in citing all of this polling data, however, isn’t merely to say “Ha ha, look at all these dumb rubes, glad we’re rid of them,” or to warn against using economic arguments to try and win back white working-class voters in Midwestern states who flipped from Obama to Trump but may be willing to vote Democratic again. In fact, one possible angle would be to look at the similar rates of economic discontent among all regions of the country to make a sort of “we're all in this together, against a rigged economy" sort of argument. (Although, in terms of get-out-the-vote activity, I would still argue that a higher-percentage play is to focus on getting more urban and suburban residents voting who aren’t even registered or who turn out only irregularly, especially black and Latino urban voters; that’s a much larger, and growing, pool of untapped votes, rather than the shrinking pool of mercurial swing voters.)
However, it’s important to offer a caution flag about expecting a purely economic argument to suddenly reverse the broader cultural trends among the rural voters sampled in this poll, if only the Democrats would push more leftish policies, or simply get angrier and use the right combination of words. When it comes down to advancing actual policies and not just railing abstractly against an unequal economy where it’s difficult to get ahead, think about how voters who already think the government does too much to help irresponsible people or people who won’t adapt to what they consider to be American norms (or, let’s face it, secular people or city people or non-white people) would react to proposals for single-payer health care, to say nothing of a universal basic income. It’d probably go something like “You want to tax me even more, in order to give more of my money to those people?”
(Which isn't to say that those aren’t ideal goals, and that we shouldn’t push for those things anyway. It’s just going to be difficult to get there by relying primarily on rural white voters as the pivot point on which the sale gets made.)
If you’re interested in exploring these ideas furtherand seeing them come to life with sympathetic interviews and actual ethnographic research instead of just clinical-looking polling data, one recently-published book I would strongly recommend (if you haven’t already read it) is Strangers in Their Own Land, by sociologist Arlie Russell Hochschild. Hochschild spent several years talking to Republican activists in Lake Charles, Louisiana, focusing on the tension between their strong right-wing beliefs and their dismay over the harm to their local environment caused by the region’s petrochemical industry.
The metaphor that forms the core of Hochschild’s book corresponds significantly with the findings of the KFF/WaPo poll; there’s a legitimate economic fear of falling further behind in line, but it’s compounded with feelings that people with values antithetical to yours are cutting in line in front of you, and that the government is not just turning a blind eye to your own problems but helping those undeserving interlopers take your place in line. Here’s how Hochschild describes it, in an interview with Vox from last year.
So the deep story I felt operating in Louisiana was this: Think of people waiting in a long line that stretches up a hill. And at the top of that is the American dream. And the people waiting in line felt like they’d worked extremely hard, sacrificed a lot, tried their best, and were waiting for something they deserved. And this line is increasingly not moving, or moving more slowly [i.e., as the economy stalls].
Then they see people cutting ahead of them in line. Immigrants, blacks, women, refugees, public sector workers. And even an oil-drenched brown pelican getting priority. In their view, people are cutting ahead unfairly. And then in this narrative, there is Barack Obama, to the side, the line supervisor who seems to be waving these people (and the pelican) ahead. So the government seemed to be on the side of the people who were cutting in line and pushing the people in line back.
I went back with this story to a lot of the people that I’d talked to. I asked, is this the way you feel? And they said, "Yeah, you read my mind!" or, "Yeah, I live your narrative!" And this all becomes more acute as their place in line feels more vulnerable. There’s the offshoring of American jobs, automation that is now making even skilled jobs feel vulnerable. So when you add a cultural and demographic sense of loss and decline to a real economic threat, it becomes alarming. And the government doesn’t seem like it’s heard your distress call.
The “line” metaphor is the takeaway that just about everyone remembers about Hochschild’s book, but she also said one other thing in the book, almost as a throwaway line, that really stood out: that people don’t vote based on their economic self-interest so much as their emotional self-interest. And when the thing that you’re emotionally invested in is your community and the values that your community embodies … and you feel like that community is under existential threat from outsiders, whether it’s outsiders who speak a different language or practice a different religion or simply have a different sense about what matters in the world … then that big-picture stuffis absolutely what motivates your vote.
Claims that such-and-such economic policy may save you some money, or maybe even abstractly save your life someday, just don’t have the same resonance.