Blog Posts & Stories

Food is a major component of health and healthy living. Consumption of healthy foods and a balanced diet will limit obesity, accompanying health issues, and premature death. But not all people have equal access to healthy foods or live in a healthy food environment.

Data from the 2015 County Health Rankings for Colorado, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wyoming was used to establish the ratio between the highest and lowest incomes in counties of each state. Not surprisingly, it turned out that high rates of income inequality predominate in rural areas in all of these Great Plains states.

Income inequality is a growing social and political concern in the United States and other western democracies. Data show measures of inequality at rates not seen in nearly a century.

Those of us who live in rural America often proclaim its positive attributes and its extraordinary quality-of-life.

Our latest report focuses on the Earned Income Tax Credit and Rural Households. The Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) is a credit against federal personal income taxes for working people who have low to moderate income, particularly those with children.

There was a time when many rural communities supported a small meat processing plant, where farmers could get hogs or calves butchered for family and friends, or hunters could get wild game processed. These businesses also rented lockers where customers could store quantities of meat in the days before refrigeration.