I have returned from a very fun road trip with my 12 year old. One thing that I was reminded of was the sad small town vibes that exist beyond the big metro area I live in. Specifically, I was reminded of the poverty that is ubiquitous in America. I am talking about the prevalence of trailer homes, closed down shops and small businesses, Dollar General stores, front yards that have become garbage dumps, abandoned RVs, small, sad used car lots, and generally dilapidated vibes. Sure, if you drive through rural America you’ll see large, new homes with proper gates and fences, big well-cared for lawns, and maybe even some healthy horses–but that isn’t the norm. What smacks you in the face is the lack of material wealth in small town America.

And of course, much of the wealth that does flow through many of these communities is Social Security money, because these populations skew older. In other words, it is worth noting that in many small town communities, where the faux-king leader and his ‘policies’ are popular, the social safety net is doing a lot of the heavy lifting. Indeed, I get the impression that the people in these towns worked hard and have been left with a disappointing piece of the American ‘dream.’

Poking around online, there does appear to be evidence of the correlation between rural American life and a greater reliance on safety net programs. According to the Richmond Federal Reserve, transfer payments as a share of personal income range from 14 percent in the most urban counties to 36 percent in the most rural, with individuals in rural counties deriving an average of 29 percent of personal income from transfers compared to 17 percent in urban counties — a gap that has widened over time. Some individual counties are extreme outliers, such as McDowell County, WV which gets 53 percent of personal income from transfer payments. According to the Carsey Institute (at the University of New Hampshire), residents in lower-income counties tend to rely more heavily on the social safety net, and programs like the EITC and SNAP are disproportionately important to rural, low-income families. I’m not wagging my finger, but I do note this reality.

Reflecting on this leads me to consider the stereotypes many rural Americans have (and are fed by the likes of Fox ‘News’) of big cities, my hometown of Portland in particular. It is the cities that are supposedly racked with poverty and crime. Having just re-experienced rural America for the past week, I am very glad to be back in the Portland metro area, and my specific neighborhood in the burbs in particular. Not only do I think neighborhoods here generally look nicer, but they aren’t nearly as depressing either.