Tough choices for feds giving out broadband money, By Joelle Tessler (AP), October 11, 2009, Washington Post: “The federal government will soon start handing out the first $4 billion from a pot of stimulus funds intended to spread high-speed Internet connections to more rural communities, poor neighborhoods and other pockets of the country clamoring for better access. The challenge is that the government has received $28 billion in requests. So the reviewers at the Commerce and Agriculture Departments who will award the broadband money must make hard choices. The 2,200 applications each envision something different - more fiber-optic lines, for example, or computer labs or municipal wireless networks. But they all promise that their proposals will create jobs and bring new economic opportunities…”

Report: High poverty risk for Southern rural kids, By Dionne Walker (AP), October 1, 2009, Miami Herald: ” A child living on a remote Southern farm may be at a higher risk of poverty than counterparts in the city, as schools struggle to develop new opportunities and factories shut down what few jobs are available, according to a new report. The brief by the University of New Hampshire’s Carsey Institute found rural children in several Southern states fell into poverty at a faster rate than urban children in 2008. The report examined population numbers released this week by the U.S. Census Bureau, which showed the South remains home to many of the nation’s poor children. ..”

Recession in rural America by the numbers, September 13, 2009, Daily Yonder: “Once a year the folks at the Economic Research Service publish a report on rural America. It’s called Rural America at a Glance and this year’s edition focuses on the recession. No surprise there. Friday we learned that the recession has ‘plunged 2.6 million more Americans into poverty, wiped out the household income gains of an entire decade and pushed the number of people without health insurance up to 46.3 million,’ according to the Washington Post. These latest Census Bureau figures don’t tell us whether the recession is better or worse in rural America. That’s what the ERS tries to do. Here are some excerpts from the full report…”

States weigh in as feds prepare to spend billions on broadband for remote areas, By Daniel C. Vock, August 12, 2009, Stateline.org: “With the state’s help, an increasing number of residents in rural Washington County in Down East Maine are using high-speed Internet connections to run their blueberry farms and lobster fleets, educate their children and communicate with doctors from remote areas. But it’s a large county and its 34,000 residents are spread out: At twice the size of Rhode Island, it takes four hours to cross in a car, and yet there’s only one traffic light. That means it’s slow going for local Internet provider, Axiom Technologies, which is working town by town to set up wireless access points, sometimes serving as few as 12 households per connection…”

With USA in a recession, rural Mexico feels the pain, By Chris Hawley, July 9, 2009, USA Today: “Not long ago, this remote Mexican mountain town was in the middle of a construction boom — as families proudly built their American-style dream homes, using cash sent home by relatives working in the USA.  Work on those houses has stopped, leaving shiny steel rebar jutting awkwardly out of concrete walls all over this town of 4,500. Meanwhile, residents have been forced to cut back on staples such as rice and corn. Eggs, meat and milk are now out of reach for many families…”

UNH study: Rural children more likely living in cohabiting households, July 3, 2009, Foster’s Daily Democrat: “As cohabiting - opposite-sex unmarried partners living together in households - increases nationwide, new data show that the growing rate of children in cohabiting households is most pronounced in rural areas. A new brief from the Carsey Institute at the University of New Hampshire analyzes recent U.S. Census Bureau data to explore trends and patterns among children in cohabiting households in rural America…”