Population decline in rural America is especially concentrated in the West. There’s a lot of wide-open land there, but most people, and young people especially, live in the cities. Half the jobs in Oregon, for example, are now in three counties in and around Portland, according to a study by Headwaters Economics. Almost two-thirds of Utah’s jobs are along the Wasatch Front, which runs from Salt Lake City to Provo.
…Much of the money coming into Wheeler County these days is from government benefits like Social Security and from stock dividends. Non-labor sources of income—things besides wages—were 58 percent of total income in the county in 2013, according to Headwaters Economics.
