Become part of the movement for unbiased, accessible election information. Donate today.
Scott Rasmussen's Number of the Day for December 10, 2018
The Number of the Day columns published on Ballotpedia reflect the views of the author.
December 10, 2018: Sixty-four percent (64%) of Americans living in rural settings make their home east of the Mississippi River.
The U.S. Census Bureau reports that “Maine and Vermont have the highest proportions of population living in rural areas (about 61.0 percent) and California has the lowest (4.9 percent).”[1]
Nearly half of all rural residents (47%) are found in the South.
Overall, “about 60 million residents of the United States live in areas designated as rural.” This term includes “the less-populated towns outside of large and small city centers to remote areas in the mountains, plains, and deserts across the nation.”[2]
The political gap between urban and rural America has become a significant issue in recent years, and the Census Bureau has provided new data on this great divide. Among other things, they found that 704 of the nation’s 3,142 counties are completely rural. A total of 5.3 million Americans live in these counties.
Another 1,185 counties are classified as mostly rural. Two-thirds of the 36.8 million people living in these counties are in a rural area.
The vast majority of Americans—274.4 million people—live in 1,253 mostly urban counties. In these areas, just 11% of residents are found in a rural setting.
Each weekday, Scott Rasmussen’s Number of the Day explores interesting and newsworthy topics at the intersection of culture, politics, and technology.
- December 7, 2018 – 77 years ago today, the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor
- December 6, 2018 – 100,375 dollars is the median annual cost for a private room in a nursing home
- December 5, 2018 – 89% of U.S. homes have air conditioning
- December 4, 2018 – 62 percent of voters nationwide believe that legal immigration is good for U.S. but illegal immigration is bad
- December 3, 2018 – 8 days of Hanukkah began last night
- To see other recent numbers, check out the archive.
Scott Rasmussen’s Number of the Day is published by Ballotpedia weekdays at 8:00 a.m. Eastern. Click here to check out the latest update.
The Number of the Day is broadcast on local stations across the country. An archive of these broadcasts can be found here.
Columns published on Ballotpedia reflect the views of the author.
Ballotpedia is the nonprofit, nonpartisan Encyclopedia of American Politics.
See also
Footnotes
| |||||||||||||||||||||||
