I can't speak to the income stuff because I also worked remote during this time, but I will say there were less divisions along economic lines out there than there are in the city, for sure. People share meat and produce with each other regardless of whether they are pulling in a bay-area tech salary or they are working HVAC for the county. We're more similar than you think around a bonfire or with fishing poles in our hands.
I live in a city now so these thoughts are comparing some of my experiences in both places:
- I spent more time with my neighbors helping each other, sitting around a fire, cooking and sharing food than I do in the city. - seasonal help was much more of a thing in the country - we'd help each other every spring with brush clearing and burning, fall harvests, culling and processing. - I'd go to bars just as much as I would here in town, and there was a coffeeshop from which I'd work (though much more rarely compared to now). - We'd drive in to town to go to sporting events or concerts together, like I drive across town now for the same thing with my friends. - we'd go hunting/fishing together, I guess sort of like I'd go paddling boarding here in town. - volunteering and charity work was very different - you'd mostly go directly help whoever needed help; there weren't as much donation drives or petitions signed.
In coming up with that little list it occurred to me that just like in a city there are people that stay to themselves, there's definitely folks in the rural areas that do that also. It might vary so much from person to person that it's not a good comparison to make between rural/urban environments.