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Hello, Rapp Up! Readers! As our November state and local elections near, we should be asking the candidates about their plans to bring rural economies back. Many of our challenges - such as bringing new jobs and opportunities to rural communities after 40 years of economic decline - defy quick-fix solutions. But we have begun to see a turnaround, and our candidates should be thinking deeply and carefully about what more can be done.

So in this issue, we delve into the history of why so many businesses and jobs left Virginia rural communities in recent decades. And also the important new policies and investments that are happening now. So read on!

As the result of decades of misplaced government policies, jobs and livelihoods have gone nowhere but down in Virginia’s rural areas, even as urban and suburban centers have prospered. Republicans have historically been all about big business and free trade while Democrats focused on urban issues.

George H. W. Bush started NAFTA negotiations and China was admitted into the World Trade Organization under Bill Clinton with strong support from big business and Republicans across the country. The result, however, was a devastating hollowing out of manufacturing jobs, including in small cities and towns in rural areas. Furniture, textile and clothing factories across Virginia shut down.

Pictured here is what remains of the Aileen Jeans factory in Rappahannock County — that employed upwards of 500 people until it closed after NAFTA.

Folks were able to buy cheap stuff even cheaper, but all their jobs went to countries with much cheaper labor - mostly to China. Despite all the bluster, Trump’s tariff hikes and tweaks to NAFTA did little to nothing to correct the problem.     

As concerns about a pending climate disaster grew, utilities and industries began to shift away from coal — and yet another source of jobs in the state went into free fall.

Meanwhile, prices that Virginia’s farmers get for their beef inched up at best, while the four mega companies that have a monopoly over the U.S. beef market quadrupled their prices and their profits. The same pattern of price gouging repeated itself with grocery chains, cereals, soda, seed and fertilizer, and most other industry segments, with the blessing of Republican politicians who argued that government should not step in with regulations that curb monopolies.

Finally, while urban areas benefited from tons of new jobs in internet communications and information technology, the lack of broadband access left rural areas shut out of those opportunities too.

The result? Populations in many of Virginia’s rural areas plummeted as economic opportunities went elsewhere.      

The good news, however, is that things have finally started to turn around under the Biden administration. Investments in factories and manufacturing jobs are coming back to the U.S. in droves, wages are rising ahead of inflation (which is steadily dropping), fair ground rules are being reestablished for corporations, major new investments are bringing affordable broadband to rural areas, and a record number of new small businesses have been started. Yes, it is still early days and not every county has yet seen the benefits. But the new investments are real and the trend is clear.

How have some Republican politicians responded? With the usual demands for more tax cuts and deregulation, and a host of other issues that have nothing to do with rural prosperity -- instead of a recognition of the real problems and a will to actually prioritize the rebuilding of rural economies.

So, in the next election, ask your candidates what they would do to really grow rural economies.    

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