Rural Counties Report Population Losses

The Department of Agriculture this week said population losses in non-metro classified counties reached nearly 150,000 in the last five years. However, USDA says the number of individual non-metro counties losing population in a five-year period reached a 50-year high of 1,320, with a net population loss of nearly 650,000. Since the Great Recession, which ended in mid-2009, new areas of population loss have emerged throughout the eastern United States, especially in manufacturing-dependent regions. The 501 non-metro counties with moderate population growth together added just over 200,000 people. Most non-metro population growth was concentrated in just 154 counties that grew by four percent or more, adding close to 300,000 people. USDA says workers attracted to the oil and gas boom caused rapid growth in the northern Great Plains, western and southern Texas, and southeastern New Mexico. However, recent production cutbacks in these regions slowed population growth in mining-dependent counties in the past year.