9-7 NWR Trump Observation

This is your Northwest report for Wednesday, September 7, and a fascinating observation came from Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump as he stumped. While campaigning in Virginia Beach yesterday, Donald Trump made a very strong statement that is difficult to deny or argue with. He accused Pres. Obama and Democratic Presidential nominee Hillary Clinton of ignoring veterans and made a very interesting comparison. "These people treat illegal immigrants better than they treat veterans." Clinton responded that Trump is running his campaign based on insults.

If you live in the rural parts of America, there is plenty of reason to be thankful. Over the Labor Day weekend, 13 people were shot and killed in Chicago. That means that the total number of homicides in Chicago, thus far this year, tops 500 people. It is not surprising that a majority of these deaths due to gun violence result from conflicts between gang members.

For the first time since the start of the Recession, rural populations have stabilized. The total number of people living in rural counties remained essentially unchanged between July 2014 and July 2015, following several years of rural net migration that began with the housing-market crisis. This improvement in population change coincides with rural economic recovery and, if current trends continue, we will begin to see gradual population growth in rural and small-town America in the coming years.

The rural unemployment rate dropped below 6 percent for the first time since 2007.