Over the past two decades, Idaho’s rural populations have been aging and struggling with housing affordability, but have also seen declining crime and some increases in educational attainment.
The Idaho Department of Labor on Friday released the full 2025 Profile of Rural Idaho, a comprehensive report examining population growth, migration, industry shifts, and other characteristics of Idaho’s rural counties.
The report shows that, while the Gem State has retained the same ratio of rural-to-urban counties over the years, the demographics, economics, crime and opportunities have all changed dramatically.
Thirty-five of Idaho’s 44 counties are considered rural — defined in the report as a county that does not have a city with at least 20,000 residents.
However, amid booming population increases to the state over the past several years, just 28% of Idaho’s residents lived in rural counties in 2023, down from 36% in 1990.
The report was the culmination of a yearlong process by state labor economists, Idaho Department of Labor Director Jani Revier said during a webinar held Tuesday. The first and second installments of the three-part report were released in May and July respectively.
Education, child care and internet drive barriers to employment in rural Idaho
The third section of the 98-page report emphasized “critical trends” in rural Idaho, including evaluating employment challenges, education, aging demographics, and transportation and broadband access.
Between 2022 and 2024, Idaho overall had record-setting low unemployment rates. However, over the past few decades, Idaho’s overall labor force participation has been declining. The number of people working or actively seeking work as a share of the working age population peaked in Idaho in 1998 at over 70%, the report said. In 2024, it was 64%.
In the last five years of labor participation data, the 20 Idaho counties that had labor force participation rates below 60% were classified as rural. The state’s nine urban counties had a labor participation rate of 64.1%.
The report points to a combination of an aging population, lack of child care, and lower education rates as potential factors leading to lower labor force participation.
Between 2019 and 2023, 11.6% of adults aged 25 and older in rural counties did not finish high school, as opposed to 7.1% of those in urban counties. This is an improvement from 2009 to 2013, when nearly 15% of adults in that age group in rural Idaho counties did not get a high school diploma.
“Continued focus on targeted workforce education programs within rural areas, such as in-school career technical education programs, registered apprenticeships and Idaho LAUNCH, may provide the greatest training benefit to rural areas with high workforce needs that are not within close proximity of a public postsecondary institution,” the report said.
Idaho Launch refers to a program spearheaded by Gov. Brad Little which provides grants to graduating Idaho high school seniors to use for tuition, job training or an apprenticeship program for in-demand careers.
Rural counties also had much lower ratios of child care employees to children under the age of 5. The report also highlighted that the number of counties where at least 20% of households who don’t have a broadband internet subscription is much higher in rural areas.
People in Idaho’s rural counties are aging, including farmers, leaving the future of agriculture in question
Idaho, following national trends, is facing an aging population as birthrates decline and the baby boomer generation gets older.
“As birth rates look poised to continue falling and a higher share of the resident population hits retirement age, this is likely to result in a chronic labor supply shortage for many of Idaho’s counties — most drastically in the rural areas,” the report said.
What are called “open country counties,” defined as those with no urban area of at least 7,500 people and no strong commuting ties to a metro area, have the lowest birthrate in Idaho, at 11 births per 1,000 residents. These open country counties have the highest median resident age, at over 44 years old.
Of the 20 top counties with the highest median age, the majority of them also had labor participation rates below 60%.
Idaho’s share of agriculture producers aged 65 and older has increased 123% since 2002, the report said.
The price of agricultural land has also skyrocketed in that time, while revenues have lagged.
The number of farms in rural Idaho has decreased 9.8% between 2002 and 2022, the report said, while the price per acre of land increased 151%. These two factors could mean an uncertain future for much of Idaho’s agricultural land.
“As farm acre prices continue to rise while cost inputs remain elevated,” the report said, “these decisions may tip in favor of farmland being sold and transitioning to other competing uses for a higher monetary return, such as residential or commercial land development.”
Poverty rates had declined across Idaho, but many rural families struggle to afford cost of living
Idaho’s poverty rates declined significantly from 2019 to 2023, the report said, but rural counties experienced a more “subdued drop.”
The poverty rate between 2019 to 2023, compared to the five years prior, dropped 5% in Idaho’s urban counties and 4.1% in rural counties.
The urban counties still had the highest poverty rates, at 12.7%. The open country counties had the second highest at 12.6%.
Rural counties saw a slight increase in the poverty rate of residents 65 and older from 9% in 2013 to 9.9% in 2023.
The report also looked at incomes versus cost of basic necessities, like housing, food and transportation. Rural counties had lower expenses for housing and child care, but less access to grocery stores and had longer commutes, the report found. Rural families also tend to have more children than urban families, the report said, “further highlighting the living wage challenge of raising a family in rural Idaho.”
“While the cost of living is cheaper in rural counties, only 31% of rural households earn incomes high enough to support a family of four, compared with 49% of urban households,” the report said.
Most crime dramatically decreased in rural Idaho, except drug offenses
Across Idaho, property and violent crimes have reduced dramatically over the past 20 years.
Between 2003 and 2023, property crime reduced 72% in rural counties and 55% in urban areas. Violent crime overall dropped 18% in rural areas and 11% in urban counties at that time.
“The cause of this decrease can be partially attributed to the long-term downward unemployment trend,” the report said. “… As more people are able to earn employment income through legitimate means, there may be less incentive to engage in criminal acts which carry a high risk of penalties like incarceration.”
Drug offenses have increased in both urban and rural areas.
In rural counties, drug offenses increased 44% between 2003 and 2023, and were up 26% in urban areas.
Open country counties had the highest drug offense rate of any county type, at 693 per 100,000 residents.
Broadband improvements and renewable energy present economic opportunities for rural areas
Access to broadband internet has been highlighted as a “critical labor force trend,” since the 2005 Profile of Rural Idaho, the report said, “that need has only intensified since.”
“High speed broadband creates opportunities for the highly skilled rural labor force to train or work remotely with less reliance on an employer’s specific location,” the report said.
Between 2019 and 2012, 24 rural and three urban counties had at least 20% of households without internet subscriptions.
The most up-to-date benchmark set by the Federal Communications Commission for high-speed internet was 100 megabits per second, the report said, and 28 rural Idaho counties are unable to meet those benchmarks with existing infrastructure.
The report also identified renewable energy projects, amid growing electricity demands, as an area of potential growth in Idaho.
Idaho produces around 20% of its own energy needs, the report said, and 60% of its annual energy consumption. Idaho contains no significant sources of coal or oil.
“Renewable energy production and transmission is likely to be another stronghold industry in rural Idaho going forward,” the report said. “Modern technology adoption, such as a higher penetration of electric vehicles, construction of large regional data centers, and continued implementation of artificial intelligence (AI) will be highly dependent on rural Idaho for electricity generation.”
Read the full report here.
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