It has been said that today's decisions determine tomorrow's destiny. Indeed, rural residents and policymakers face many decisions that will affect, if not determine, rural America's destiny.
Good decisions require good input.
This report draws upon the work of the Rural Economy Division of the Economic Research Service to provide that information. It pulls together the findings of several researchers to describe general rural conditions and trends, as well as details about the many differences found in rural America. The maps and charts in this report are the products of analyses conducted by the Economic Research Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture. Data used in the analyses were provided by the Bureau of the Census, the Bureau of Economic Analysis, and the Bureau of Labor Statistics. In those charts, the 1979 value of all charted variables was made to equal 100.