America's Urban-Rural Work Divide

Farm vs. factory, bucolic green fields vs. densely packed streets: from Green Acres to The Simple Life, America's urban-rural divide has been an enduring axis of the nation's culture. Today, with less than one percent of people employed on farms, what is the underlying source of that divide?

A new Federal Reserve Bank of New York Staff Report by my Martin Prosperity Institute colleague Kevin Stolarick, Fed economist Jaison Abel, and Todd Gabe of the University of Maine, sheds new light on the underlying economic differences between urban and rural areas. It provides a detailed examination of the geographic distribution of jobs, skills, and earnings across the United States, from densely populated city centers to isolated and sparsely populated rural areas. The study uses data from the U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Information Network (O*NET) to identify 11 key clusters of jobs based on their underlying skill-sets: Laborers, Technicians, Makers, Machinists, Assistants, Servers, Managers, Analysts, Engineers, Scientists, and Executives. O*NET covers a wide range of skills, from technical skills such as "equipment selection" to social skills such as "negotiation" and "service orientation."