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Discussion Paper
How Different Are Rural and Urban Small Businesses?
Small businesses play a big part in rural communities. In addition to serving local demand, businesses with fewer than 500 employees account for over half of rural employment. As part of the Richmond Fed's mission to strengthen the economy and our communities, we work to understand economic and business conditions in small towns and rural communities. This includes understanding how rural businesses in the Fifth District are faring and keeping a pulse on the financial health of rural small businesses. Using newly released data from the Small Business Credit Survey (SBCS), a national data ...
Newsletter
What is driving the differences in inflation across U.S. regions?
In this article, we explore differences in inflation dynamics across U.S. regions. Looking independently at the impact of consumption patterns and inflation by expenditure categories, we find that recent gaps across regions have existed largely because of different regional inflation rates for the housing category. Yet we also find that overall inflation is very highly correlated across regions.
Discussion Paper
Distribution of COVID-19 Incidence by Geography, Race, and Income
In this post, we study whether (and how) the spread of COVID-19 across the United States has varied by geography, race, income, and population density. Have urban areas been more affected by COVID-19 than rural areas? Has population density mattered in the spread? Has the coronavirus's impact varied by race and income? Our analysis uncovers stark demographic and geographic differences in the effects of the pandemic thus far.
Journal Article
Research on Affordable Rental Housing and Subsidy Expiration
There is an abundance of evidence that rental markets across the country are unaffordable. Studies show that, from 2000 to 2010, there was a rapid decline in rental affordability, with rent increases occurring in the face of stagnant or declining incomes in nearly every metropolitan area and across almost every quintile of the income distribution during that period.
Discussion Paper
Shifting Populations: Results From 2021 Census Estimates
When the COVID-19 pandemic first began in the United States in 2020, many workers started working full time from home. The expansion of remote work allowed a growing number of people to see a future in which where they worked and where they lived did not have to be one in the same. As workers became less tethered to their offices in big cities, stories emerged, including from our own outreach, of workers moving away from urban cores in favor of more rural areas. But do the stories align with what the data tell us?
Discussion Paper
Mapping Outcomes Across Rural and Urban Communities
How different are economic outcomes across rural and urban communities? What factors are at the heart of these differences? This year, we've been building our data products to help data users and local and state leaders gain quick insight into geographic differences across a range of indicators. This Regional Matters post presents several of the rural-urban comparison maps we've created, along with complementary data visualizations. We focus specifically on rural-urban differences in employment and educational attainment to highlight how these visualizations can be used.