A survey of rural and urban Americans

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^ And for the umpteenth time now @musicprnt , yes of course we receive some federal benefits. We also pay Federal taxes at the same rate you do, which is my point. Your one-off examples of federal benefits rural people enjoy are meaningless as the underlying question here remains unanswered – do rural communities consume more federal tax dollars than urban communities, on a population density basis.

It’s a complicated question to answer because while we may receive some federal benefits in the form of broadband installation, airport management, etc. the services we do receive are scaled down significantly to accommodate the population of the area. We also receive fewer benefits overall compared to residents of urban areas. And complicating the situation even more is the fact that urban residents can and do share some of the benefits rural areas enjoy. When you drive to somewhere via a remote highway that runs through my town – because that highway provides a shortcut/saves time – you are benefiting from that federally funded highway the same way I do, so it’s not just a benefit enjoyed exclusively by people in my community.

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Seems to be about the same, little bit lower for non-metro, according to this chart for 2010, the most recent year.

https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/federal-funds/federal-funds/#2010



                 Dollars per person
United States    10,864
Metro            10,976
Nonmetro     10,293
Per capita Federal funding by region, metro status, and program function, fiscal 2010<br>
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A timely book and article:

http://host.madison.com/wsj/news/local/govt-and-politics/in-donald-trump-era-uw-prof-s-rural-wisconsin-insights/article_69bb90cc-008b-5d30-912f-bf2019732b59.html

After reading some of the comments on this thread, the rural residents Cramer interviewed hit the nail on the head.

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What is being left out isn’t how much is being spent per person, it is how that is paid for. The key factor here is how much a state let’s say pays in in taxes and how much it gets back from the federal government, and that is what we are talking about. You may pay taxes at the same rate, but what kind of tax revenue are you sending in? And how much are you getting back. In the region I live in, for example, the northeast, for all the whining of rural areas about how much money “those states take from us, they take out tax dollars to support all those lazy freedloaders on welfare”, for every dollar we send in, we get back about 66c…whereas Alaska depending on which report you talk about, gets back about 9 bucks. South Carolina depending on the study gets back almost 8 bucks for everything they send in, and for most rural states they receive a lot more than they put in, especially the poorer states like Mississippi and Arkansas, and that discrepancy comes from somewhere. All those block grants, all those subsidies add up, and it is a lot. Newt Gingrich, who was as anti government as anyone, in his own district had huge federally funded things in it, from public libraries to a coast guard auxiliary (in a landlocked state) to a recreational lake, to a host of other things (it was something like 9 billion a year coming in) . What I am challenging is the self reliancy myth or that people in rural areas ‘support everyone else’, when in reality they don’t even fully support themselves, but because those payments and subsidies and boosts are hidden they really believe they are paying for everyone else.

More importantly, given that only about 15% of the population lives in rural areas, when they talk about how the people in the cities are making all the decisions, it is funny, when things go their way we live in a democracy where ‘majority rules’, when same sex marriage was illegal and people were fighting to make it legal in the courts, we heard "the majority of the people don’t want it’, but when the majority of the people decide issues in a representative government they don’t like it and want their voices to be the law. Yet on the other hand people in lightly populated states that are mostly rule expect everyone else to be happy that the very nature of our government favors lightly populated states, for example that the Senate does not represent democratic principles because a state that has a population less than the county I live in has as many senators as my state does, that is so much larger.

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Actually, @zinhead’s piece points out the very problem we are talking about, that people in rural areas perceive ‘they don’t get anything’, that they are 'overlooked" and the like, that is the very problem. For example, if you asked the people in the rural areas about something like gay marriage, they would likely tell you that that is up to the ‘people to decide’, that a majority should support it before being legal, ie in a democracy, majority rules. Yet fundamentally rural people are a small percent of the population, only 15% of people live in rural areas across the US, and in most states the urban and town areas make up a large percent of the people in the state…so if a minority, why should they get more than someone from more populated areas? I also don’t see rural voters complaining that the government isn’t democratic when it favors them, the fact that Montana has a population less than the county I live in yet has 2 senators and my state has 2 with a population so much larger, or that because of the senate rule rural/small states have much more power than the states that represent most of the population, and they don’t complain when the reality is most small states get a lot more back from the federal government than they send in, and they certainly aren’t supporting people in places like Madison or Milwaukee that likely get back less than they send in to either the state or federal government. They want ‘the majority to rule’ when it is in their favor, but want to have outsize power when democracy doesn’t favor them.

The piece actually is very good and I don’t argue with the point the professor is making, I think that in the last election the dippy do’s applying sabremetrics (the same thing they use in Moneyball in baseball, that often doesn’t work as touted, just ask Sandy Alderson with the Mets about that) totally lost sight of things, and the Democrats especially didn’t get on the ground enough to see what people were thinking. I don’t think rural voters are stupid, but I do think in their anger, as justified as it is, they let themselves be used by snake oil salesmen who tell them the gold would be out there for them except for the EPA, high taxes, Illegal immigrants, liberals and a host of ‘others’, said snake oil salesmen keep saying that, and keep promoting many of the policies that hurt people in rural areas, that have cost them so badly, and yet keep believing them. The Democrats on the other hand kind of look at rural areas as these people they can sell with a policy paper, they don’t have people on the ground pointing out that the rural areas have a lot of the same problems that inner city minority neighborhoods have, or blue collar urban and suburban voters do and show how what they want to do will help them all. The Democrats play the same card too, and the problem is the anger of the politics of division may get them elected, but basically doesn’t solve any of the problems, and when voters don’t hold them accountable, you have a problem, you end up with the mess we have. It is all good to say rural voters voted for Trump because he was against the mainstream gop they didn’t trust, but that does no good if they elect the same old crowd they claim to despise.

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I can vouch for that being a downstate NYer.

Also, a HS classmate who is a practicing MD also gets to see this up close and personal as while he is officially a physician in a NYC area hospital, they have an arrangement where they send him and other doctors in some smaller rural/urban upstate areas because there’s a shortage of doctors there. He’s lost count of how many upstate residents(all White in his experience) rant endlessly about how they’re overtaxed to subsidize “welfare queens” and “druggies” in NYC/downstate while failing to notice the hypocrisy in the mirror as they themselves were often on various forms of public assistance including welfare and medicaid…and some were drug abusers* themselves.

And a similar phenomenon exists in other states…such as a friend and his Southern Maine based relatives regularly complaining about how most of their state taxes ends up subsidizing a tiny minority of Maine residents living in the underpopulated rural northern half of the state.

  • Meth, Oxycontin, heroin, etc. He's also lost count of how many of them attempted to fake symptoms so he'll write them oxycontin prescriptions after previous doctors wised up or the ones who were willing to go along were busted by the authorities for writing illegal prescriptions. He always refuses...
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Graduated taxation is what it is. The rich - NYC, in the case - make the most, and as such has to carry all the unfortunates that can be legally tied to their tab. That they get back less than they pay in isn’t a surprise to anyone who’s brought home a professional’s salary.

And those irritable complainers might very well be at the top of the rural bell curve. Making enough to pay top rates but still tied to the farm and sessile. Enjoying crappy night life, gravel roads, no Trader Joe’s, 30 minute drive for gas or groceries, etc. All that good stuff and… cell or satellite internet.

A good question would be: if these sessile bumpkins every decided en masse to give up the rural life, move to the city, whatever… how many of y’all would step up and take their place? On their farms, in their ag supply stores, or working as diesel mechanics or welders?

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@catahoula,

The smarter country bumpkins avoid living in places with crappy night life, gravel roads, no Trader Joe’s, no cell-internet coverage, and 30-minute drives to essentials etc.

I live just 2 minutes from…groceries, gas, banks, the doctors office, liquor store, car dealers, restaurants, fitness center, Staples, a coffee shop, and numerous music events.

I am NEVER in a traffic jam! My drive to work is 10 minutes. I am 30 minutes away from a Wegman’s, Trader Joe’s, and whatever night life I may need. I pay a fraction of the taxes that most urban dwellers pay for a home with a half acre of land. I doubt if I could ever go back to my old urban days. Many bumpkins feel as I do and, lacking street smarts, wouldn’t thrive and survive. When you consider all of this, maybe I am getting off dirt cheap?

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I take it you’ve never met an urbanite who works as a diesel mechanic or welder. I know several…some who do it professionally and others who were professionals before moving on to higher paying jobs…but who still use those skills during their leisure time*.

  • Crafting metallic art sculptures, hot-rodding old cars from the scrap yard for fun, etc.
170

No Trader Joes?!? How does one live? The horrors! :wink:

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One of the nicest grocery stores I have ever been in is one back in the small town midwest community where H and I were raised. It easily compares to the Wegmans here in DC suburbs (which is awesome).

That said it’s still not enough to get me to move back.

172

They do indeed have diesel engines and a need for welders in big cities, cobrat.

But… the question was who here would sub those positions out in the sticks… serious bumpkin area, where food is grown/raised, and shipped to market on those expensive highways we all subsidize.

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Some percentage. Not an appreciable one, not when it comes to those bumpkins doing the evidently unappreciated task of feeding smart people.

I guess I framed the question incompletely. Left out the crucial component of “If someone isn’t doing it, the rest of us starve”.

Maybe it’s just me, but I think we could see half of all college professors and administrators get lost in a blizzard, nearly every mid-level government supervisor find themselves stuck in an elevator (permanently), Congress going to convening every five years or so, etc., etc., etc., - and not suffer more than a mild hiccup. The kind you feel better after having.

Half the bumpkins walk off the job, and… well, hope y’all put up some veggies and staples.

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Well, with the increasingly prevalent urban and indoor gardening - both small scale and very large scale - don’t assume all those producing food are country bumpkins. :slight_smile:

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That’s the spirit.

When they start growing winter wheat for the bread machines, and soybeans for the tofu, they’ll have it mostly licked.

176

This is turning into Town Mouse, Country Mouse.

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I want to hear more about very large scale urban gardening. Maybe I could take those jobs. Heck, I’m here anyway: I always thought I’d enjoy welding and I do like the smell of diesel engines. Retail…no, doesn’t matter urban or not.

Crappy night life = ok
Gravel roads = have their advantages. Might take it over the rural, over-subsidized state highway I have now
Trader Joe’s = never been in one. Life continues on.
No cell-internet coverage = deal breaker. We have one provider and my speed is currently 4. Acknowledge this is highly annoying.
30-minute drives to essentials = Red herring. I can drive 12 miles to Walmart with no stoplights more quickly than getting there in congested suburbia.

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http://aerofarms.com/technology/

http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20170405-how-vertical-farming-reinvents-agriculture

You can find plenty more online.

“Retail…no, doesn’t matter urban or not.”

With online shopping and 2 day delivery, it really doesn’t.

Actually, some of the worst cell phone reception is in some of the more upscale areas due to the NIMBY factor.

179

^Thanks for the links. Interesting.

I meant I wasn’t working retail…anywhere :slight_smile: But I hate shopping too, ha! Amazon is my BFF.

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Better phrasing than what I scrubbed from an earlier post. Figured it was defeatist talk and common ground would eventually be found.

Edge of town, to big city for 30 years, and back more rural than I started. Since we’ve retired back to where my wife grew up, I’ve run into people, done business with people, that, if you don’t squint past the ‘education level’ metric that showed up a few posts back… you might be susceptible to being made feeling a little poorer for living by. Even for living in the same county as.

Shouldn’t. One of the guys that did road work for us, was a few years in school behind my wife. HS education, nice as he can be, and owns what I’d guess is North of 10 MM in road construction equipment. Buys it new, trades it in about the time the average suburban dweller trades their car, and lives a good life. Employs around 30 people, several who told me he gave them a job when they were laid off from the coal mines around here.

Spent enough time with him to ask him how he got started, whether he worked his way up, family business, whatever. No, from scratch. Bought a trackhoe, since it was what he knew, and went from there. Said he lay awake in bed many a night, when it was raining, and dreading the next call from the Caterpillar finance people. That early in his career, he went through a stretch of rain that made it too wet to work for close to a month. That he finally told them he couldn’t pay them for the machinery if he couldn’t work, that they needed to come pick it all up the next morning.

Said the badgering laid off, as the weather eventually did, and that after dragging himself out of that hole, it’s all been downhill.

Really nice guy, solid guy, but all in all he might be mistaken for a bumpkin.