Researchers, policy makers and community development practitioners working on rural America issues often are at a disadvantage, relative to their urban counterparts. Fortunately, a relatively new data source, the Census Bureau’s America Community Survey(ACS), is now available to help those interested in rural issues more readily find the data they need. With data from 3 million households collected each year, there are enough households in the rural portion of each state (the state’s nonmetropolitan counties collectively, rather than each nonmetro country individually) to produce reliable estimates on a host of socio-demographic topics. The ACS information presented here is from 2007.

The Carsey Institute’s Social and Economic Nonmetropolitan Indicators by State website is an interactive site that allows for the exploration of pre-selected socio-economic indicators from each state’s rural areas. The nonmetropolitan information on the site is calculated by subtracting the metropolitan area statistics from the state-wide data. Note that the proportion of a state’s population and geographic area considered to be in nonmetropolitan areas varies widely from state to state. Some fairly populous states such as California and Massachusetts having relatively few nonmetro areas and New Jersey and Rhode Island have none, while a majority of the population in states such as Montana or Vermont reside in nonmetropolitan areas.

The indicator site can display data for all states simultaneously or display information about an individual or group of states by clicking on the map or state names after an indicator has been selected.