Dramatic Urban-Rural Prosperity Gap in Washington State

Separating this northeastern Washington town and Seattle are 300 miles as diverse as any on Earth--stark desert, the majestic Columbia River and the startling beauty of the Cascade Range.

But that expanse is trifling compared with the economic gap between this town and the state’s largest city.

The urban-rural economic gap in Washington state is the largest in the country, and for most of the state’s rural counties, the software millionaires and aerospace engineers of Puget Sound seem worlds away.

The disparity can be traced in part to a slump in natural resource-based industries like timber and mining--long the lifeblood of the rural West and now stymied by debate over new priorities that value forests over timber, mountains over mines.

The gap is especially wide here in Pend Oreille County, population 10,700, with forested mountains along its borders with Idaho and British Columbia. Many local residents look with envy toward the Seattle area, where Boeing makes jets as fast as it can hire people to design and build them and where Microsoft, the software giant, makes millionaires.

“Pend Oreille County has really missed the boat,” said Mark Cauchy, an official with the county’s Public Utility District and a member of the county’s economic-development council board and Newport’s Chamber of Commerce.

The county is working to catch up, but keeping its goals realistic.

“We’re not looking for the pie-in-the-sky Microsoft to land here. We’re looking for something small in scale,” Cauchy says.

In the meantime, folks make do. Some commute 60 miles to jobs in Spokane, the state’s second-largest city, though that’s not for everyone.

“A lot of people would rather work up here than have that drive every day, but there are no jobs,” said Denise Teeples, who supports two children working locally--doing chores for elderly people and others who need help around the home.

Washington’s dubious distinction--having the biggest economic gap between urban and rural counties--is based on earnings and unemployment levels, according to a recent study by the Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit Corporation for Enterprise Development.

Other Western states with big disparities are Montana, which ranked 12th in the nation; Utah, which was 13th; and Wyoming, 14th.

Alaska boasts the smallest disparity, followed by Nevada--for years the nation’s fastest-growing state--and, fifth from the bottom, Hawaii.

While much of rural Alaska is struggling, annual payments to residents from the Alaska Permanent Fund--created to share the state’s oil wealth--may help bridge the gap there, said Mike Irwin, commissioner of the state’s Department of Community and Regional Affairs.

The 13 states that make up the West have shared in the rural economic growth of the ‘90s and surpassed it in some respects, said Karen Hamrick of the U.S. Agriculture Department’s Economic Research Service.

But earnings have remained flat in the rural West because of high unemployment fueled in part by a growing labor pool, Hamrick said. The expanding work force includes migrants from urban areas and immigrants from Mexico and elsewhere, she said.

From 1990 to ‘96, inflation-adjusted pretax earnings in the West’s nonmetropolitan areas remained unchanged at an average of $439 per week, according to federal population survey data. Earnings nationwide during the period also were flat, while earnings in urban areas nationally dipped from $535 to $530.

In Washington state, Gov. Gary Locke is trying to even things out with a proposed $20-million package of tax breaks and other incentives intended to lure new businesses to rural Washington and encourage expansion of existing ones.

“We can’t continue living with a two-economy state,” said Tim Douglas, who heads the state Department of Community Trade and Economic Development.

But the Democratic governor’s proposal, which would provide $2.3 million in direct spending for fiscal 1999 and forgo as much as $17.6 million in tax revenues, is proving a tough sell in the Republican-controlled Legislature.

Some GOP leaders contend that market forces will bring jobs to rural Washington. Until then, they argue, people should move to where the jobs are.

Locke’s proposal would benefit the 22 counties considered “distressed,” meaning that their unemployment rates have been 20% above the state average for three years and that median household incomes are less than 75% of the state median.

Though the list includes more than half the state’s 39 counties, they account for just 18.3% of the state’s population of 5.5 million according to state population data for 1996, the most recent year available.

Pend Oreille County’s January unemployment rate was the state’s third-highest at 12%, which was down from a state-high average of 16.5% for all of 1996. By comparison, January unemployment in King County, the state’s most populous county dominated by Seattle, was 2.8%.

But the governor’s proposal does not have the wholehearted support of two Republican legislators whose districts include Pend Oreille County.

Although they express appreciation that rural Washington’s economic plight is finally getting attention, state Sen. Bob Morton and Rep. Cathy McMorris say tax incentives won’t offset the burden posed by business and environmental regulations. McMorris also says rural transportation funding is a more urgent need than tax breaks.

But GOP Rep. Jim Buck says it’s high time urban Washington helped boost the economy in strapped rural areas, including his Olympic Peninsula district.

Statewide ballot measures seeking approval for funds to build new stadiums for the Seattle Mariners and Seattle Seahawks would have failed without rural support, Buck noted.

“We can go out on a limb and support stadiums for them,” he said.

“Now it’s time to help rural areas out a little, and we’re having a hard time with it.”

Locke’s initiative grew out of a November summit on rural economic issues held in the Olympic Peninsula town of Port Angeles, struggling to recover from the 1997 closure of a pulp mill that had long been a primary employer.

But the governor’s proposal is just a starting point, Douglas said. Another rural summit is planned in May in eastern Washington.

“This kind of economic growth does not happen overnight,” Douglas said. “It’s a long-term process.”

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How States Rank

Here is how the states rank in terms of the economic disparity between urban and rural areas, based on earnings, income, employment levels and poverty rates. States are ranked from the largest disparity down. The data is from a recent survey the Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit Corporation for Enterprise Development.

1. Washington

2. Massachusetts

3. New York

4. Iowa

5 (tie) Missouri

7. Georgia

South Dakota

8. (tie) Virginia

Illinois

10. Nebraska

11. Delaware

12. Montana

13. Utah

14. Wyoming

15. Kansas

16. Minnesota

17. Connecticut

18. Mississippi

19. (tie) Florida

Wisconsin

21. California

22. Colorado

23. Texas

24. Idaho

25. (tie) Maine

Michigan

27. Arkansas

28. Arizona

29. (tie) Kentucky

New Hampshire

31. South Carolina

32. Louisiana

33. Pennsylvania

34. (tie) New Mexico

North Dakota

36. Oregon

37. Indiana

38. Maryland

39. (tie) Rhode Island

West Virginia

41. Vermont

42. Alabama

43. Ohio

44. Tennessee

45. Hawaii

46. Oklahoma

47. North Carolina

48. Nevada

49. New Jersey

New Jersey is not ranked because the state does not have an area classified as nonmetropolitan.

Associated Press