This "Policy Report" column was first published by Nebraska Farmer on March 14, 2025, and is excerpted here with permission. See the full column here.
In April and May, nearly 6,000 rural Nebraskans will receive a survey as part of the Nebraska Rural Poll, asking for their opinions on current issues and long-running trends.
The poll has been an annual effort of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln since 1996, and it is unique in its history and in its focus on rural Nebraska, specifically the areas outside of the Omaha and Lincoln metropolitan areas.
There are technically metropolitan counties in the Grand Island area as of 2012, and in the Sioux City area as well, but they are included in the poll based on history and similarity to other rural Nebraska counties. There are also still more people in the cities and towns of rural Nebraska than in the countryside, but all of them make up what is commonly referred to as rural Nebraska.
The poll focuses on several core issues each year, along with some focus areas of relevance from year to year. The insights from the poll provide a perspective on community and personal well-being across the state, as well as rural sentiment on various policy questions and emerging issues in society.
And unlike the noise of national politics and polls that might minimize the perspective of the relatively small population of rural places, the Nebraska Rural Poll specifically gives voice to those populations and their perspectives. Results from the 2024 poll highlight some of those perspectives and give credence to the value of the poll and to the ongoing process.
Focus on the farm
In 2024, the poll captured an ongoing trend in personal well-being where individuals on average continued to report being better off relative to five years ago, but at a rate that has been falling for the past five years as well.
The obvious factor since then is the COVID-19 pandemic, but numerous factors — including societal changes, political animosity, economic trends, and individual aging and health factors — likely all play a part.
In comparison, communities may be trending up as respondents indicated community change for the better in 2023 and 2024, after a couple years of more negative than positive sentiment. Other results show the critical ties between individuals and their communities, reinforcing the importance of both to overall well-being.
The community results also provide long-run trends on satisfaction with community services and amenities. There are ongoing issues and concerns with various community services, as satisfaction has generally been trending down for things like health care, cultural and commercial opportunities, and housing, in particular.
Additional questions in the 2024 poll highlighted concerns with the supply and quality of available housing. Respondents also stressed the importance of housing to community growth and well-being with support for various housing incentive or assistance policies that could be enacted at the local, state or national level.
Satisfaction with some community services has held relatively stable over the past 20 years. Even after accounting for some downward trends over the past five years, satisfaction is relatively strong for public safety and governance and for education.
That is true for infrastructure as well, albeit at a lower level of satisfaction. While we can imagine the perpetual complaints about roads and bridges, we also are dependent on an infrastructure that provides cellphone and broadband internet access, things that we might complain about now even as we didn’t have them to complain about 30 years ago.
Continue reading full column via Nebraska Farmer ...
Listen: Nebraska FARMcast
Brad Lubben, Nebraska Extension ag policy specialist, discusses the Nebraska Rural Poll's recent findings and the history and impact of the poll in giving voice to rural Nebraska.
