By Mark Haggerty, Headwaters Economics— Two years into a slow economic recovery, many Montana rural communities are still struggling to create jobs. The unemployment rate in rural counties is just under 8 percent compared to 6 percent for Montana’s metropolitan counties.
In hard economic times, Montana has relied on its forests for jobs and income. Today, logging cannot lift the state alone, but logging combined with forest and watershed restoration work can be the basis for job growth in Montana’s rural counties.…
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