Our Call to Action
Rural America must lead in building a more prosperous, sustainable, and just future for the entire country. Rural people demonstrate fundamental American values like defending working people, investing in locally driven solutions, protecting core freedoms, and respecting our close connection to the land. Yet our rural communities are often ignored or actively harmed by the policy choices of elected leaders and the unchecked power of corporations and the ultrawealthy. The Rural Policy Action Report is a roadmap to build momentum for policies that deliver for rural people.
The policies outlined in this report are popular. More than that, they also reflect meaningful and urgent needs informed by rural leaders and their communities.
A broad coalition of organizations and local elected officials contributed to the report. These groups represent diverse geographies, issue expertise, and constituents. Together, they form a cornerstone of a governing majority coalition, giving rural people power to influence the decisions that impact their lives.
When rural people have a seat at the policy-making table, we build an economy from the bottom up and middle out, not the top down. For instance, last year, Missourians organized a ballot initiative and voted to raise the statewide minimum wage and establish paid sick leave. This pro-worker ballot initiative was more popular than any statewide candidate.
Rural people face significant challenges, and we work with our neighbors to overcome them. The government should invest in these rural-led solutions. In one successful example, the community in Yakutat, Alaska, utilized federal funding to repair a failing municipal heating system. This investment kept the school in session and created energy efficiency that will save millions while reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
The federal government should learn from and replicate these success stories by partnering with rural communities. Yet the 2024 success story in Yakutat is much more difficult today, because politicians in Washington cut programs and diverted funds to the ultrawealthy and giant corporations.
The cuts to programs we rely on go deeper. The massive cuts to health care will raise prices, kick people off of insurance, cause hospitals and health care infrastructure to close, and disrupt rural economies. Bishop Marcia Dinkins of the Black Appalachian Coalition shares how affordable healthcare saved her daughter’s life.
Meanwhile, the federal government is spending billions on a cruel immigration policy that is causing chaos and harming all of us. Immigrants, small business owners, and farmers near Marshalltown, Iowa, are working together to build up their community.
Government policy has a significant impact on the tools and resources available to hard-working rural people to improve our communities. Since our 2021 Rural Policy Action Report, we’ve achieved major victories, proving when we organize we can make change. However, many of those successes have been reversed in 2025, and new policies create barriers and harsher obstacles. The Policy Scorecard describes the policy landscape, including a detailed accounting of our previous priorities.
In the face of long-standing challenges and recent setbacks, rural people need hope — a practical vision for how things can get better. And our champions need a positive agenda that can improve rural people’s lives and deliver promised lower costs, higher wages, and freedom to make choices about their own lives.
This report is full of rural people and the policy actions they dream of for a better life for themselves and generations to come. Join this committed coalition of rural advocates taking action. With sustained engagement from political and nonprofit leaders, rural communities will help create this future for us all.
–Sarah Jaynes,
Rural Democracy Initiative