I think the biggest reason for this trend is the decline in health and human services across the various states which have large rural populations because it's been the politically expedient thing to do when budget crises happen because it's assumed they rural pops will just move to the big city and get the services there. Little do they realize that takes MONEY. So, when you're dealing with the same economic downturns which cause the budget crises also lead to underemployment and unemployment you're not going to see many of those folks move because they have no money or very little of it. Ultimately, there needs to be an honest discussion among the rank and file of the American conservative movements on these matters. Specifically, they need to acknowledge that their whole "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" mentality isn't working and that a whole new program needs to be adopted. Specifically one that acknowledges that Randian/Right-Libertarian approaches are dead ends in terms of sustainability. Whether they like it or not they need to accept that there needs to be some level of welfare in government especially now when the greatest disruption to employment opportunities are ahead of us (not behind us). We can't assume there will be plentiful well paying jobs that can/will emerge in the rural sections of the US. We need to assume the opposite as distance is costly to most industries and there's barely an operable infrastructure to support building up those rural parts of the country (especially when it comes to the Internet-based IT jobs). If there's anything they should do I think an infrastructure bill that focuses on getting Internet access and education programs out to the rural parts of the country would be a good first step on top of rebuilding and augmenting existing welfare programs.