Rural Economy

Missouri S&T, East Central College and St. Charles Community College have received a state grant to promote high-tech manufacturing and train its workforce.

The U.S. has lost more than 2,800 newspapers since 2005, many of them in rural areas. Now some journalists are redoubling their efforts to provide local news and trying new models in a difficult industry.

Rural areas are losing grocery stores to consolidation faster than their urban counterparts — but some communities have come up with innovative solutions.

The consumer price index is widely used by Americans to determine inflation, but the Bureau of Labor Statistics only surveys counties that include a metro or micropolitan area.

The report paints a grim picture of accelerating consolidation over the past three decades. Yet some communities and local grocery stores are finding ways to thrive.

A report tracking small cities that aren’t part of metropolitan areas shows Rolla and Hannibal did much better economically than the national average.

The federal government is offering grant money to help address the problem, but small towns fear they lack the tech knowhow and resources to defend their systems and are daunted by grant applications.

Small towns far from big cities rely upon federal grants to help them, but numerous definitions of what the government considers rural make that complicated.

The COVID-19 pandemic has sparked high housing prices all across the country in places long insulated from them. Remote, rural towns where real estate prices remained low for decades are now seeing unprecedented price spikes, which are compounding problems for the rural poor.

A new report from the USDA shows benefits from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, formerly known as food stamps, have a bigger impact on rural economies.