Tag: population

By Marnie Werner, Vice President, Research & Operations A lack of reliable child care was the single biggest problem for employees in America before the pandemic. Now, as parents head back to work, they will be looking for child care, whether it’s with their old provider or a new one, and that will drive up ...

By Whitney Oachs, CRPD research intern Last summer the Center for Rural Policy reported a “sea change in engagement” after racial justice protests were held in rural communities across the state following the death of George Floyd. Though more attention has been paid to these protests in urban environments, towns as small as Grand Marais ...

By Marnie Werner, VP, Research & Operations Ready for a silver lining? So much of what we hear about the pandemic is doom and gloom, but as a new report we released last month on workforce and job vacancies showed, rural Minnesota is sitting at the crossroads of two important trends that have created a ...

On this episode Julie Tesch and Marnie Werner talk about two topics that only come around every ten years, the Census and legislative redistricting. They discuss  why redistricting is so important but has been so troublesome in Minnesota history, the role of accurate census data and how a salamander became a symbol of democracy in ...

Our thanks go out to Tim Penny, president of the Southern Minnesota Initiative Foundation and former First District Congressman, for his opinion piece in last Sunday’s Minneapolis Star Tribune featuring our work on cost of living and how your dollar can go further in Greater Minnesota. The study itself is getting a lot of traction ...

An economic and demographic update of rural Minnesota By Kelly Asche, Research Associate & Marnie Werner, Vice President, Research For a printable version of the report, click here. Each year, the Center for Rural Policy and Development provides a brief update on various economic and demographic data pertaining to rural Minnesota. As policy discussions concerning ...

Access to healthcare services has been an issue in rural areas for years. Our upcoming report takes a big dive into the reasons why, from the policies to the business models that cause services to be offered in one location but disappear from others.  CRPD research associate and project lead Kelly Asche joins Marnie and ...

When taking population into account, the rate of COVID-19 cases is just as high, if not higher, in counties outside of the seven-county metro. By Kelly Asche May, 2020 Counties outside of the seven-county metro have some of the highest COVID-19 case rates in the state. But this so far hasn’t translated into a similarly ...

  In the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic, with unemployment claims in Minnesota hovering at around 20% of the labor force, it might seem strange to talk about a workforce shortage. But just last winter (that seems so long ago, doesn’t it?) that’s exactly what we were talking about. As a follow-up to last year’s ...