malthus essay on population analysis

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An Essay on the Principle of Population

By thomas robert malthus.

There are two versions of Thomas Robert Malthus’s Essay on the Principle of Population . The first, published anonymously in 1798, was so successful that Malthus soon elaborated on it under his real name. * The rewrite, culminating in the sixth edition of 1826, was a scholarly expansion and generalization of the first.Following his success with his work on population, Malthus published often from his economics position on the faculty at the East India College at Haileybury. He was not only respected in his time by contemporaneous intellectuals for his clarity of thought and willingness to focus on the evidence at hand, but he was also an engaging writer capable of presenting logical and mathematical concepts succinctly and clearly. In addition to writing principles texts and articles on timely topics such as the corn laws, he wrote in many venues summarizing his initial works on population, including a summary essay in the Encyclopædia Britannica on population.The first and sixth editions are presented on Econlib in full. Minor corrections of punctuation, obvious spelling errors, and some footnote clarifications are the only substantive changes. * Malthus’s “real name” may have been Thomas Robert Malthus, but a descendent, Nigel Malthus, reports that his family says he did not use the name Thomas and was known to friends and colleagues as Bob. See The Malthus Homepage, a site maintained by Nigel Malthus, a descendent.For more information on Malthus’s life and works, see New School Profiles: Thomas Robert Malthus and The International Society of Malthus. Lauren Landsburg

Editor, Library of Economics and Liberty

First Pub. Date

London: J. Johnson, in St. Paul's Church-yard

1st edition

The text of this edition is in the public domain. Picture of Malthus courtesy of The Warren J. Samuels Portrait Collection at Duke University.

Table of Contents

• Chapter III
• Chapter VII
• Chapter VIII
• Chapter XII
• Chapter XIII
• Chapter XIV
• Chapter XVI
• Chapter XVII
• Chapter XVIII
• Chapter XIX

The following Essay owes its origin to a conversation with a friend, on the subject of Mr. Godwin’s Essay, on avarice and profusion, in his Enquirer. The discussion, started the general question of the future improvement of society; and the Author at first sat down with an intention of merely stating his thoughts to his friend, upon paper, in a clearer manner than he thought he could do in conversation. But as the subject opened upon him, some ideas occurred, which he did not recollect to have met with before; and as he conceived, that every, the least light, on a topic so generally interesting, might be received with candour, he determined to put his thoughts in a form for publication.

The Essay might, undoubtedly, have been rendered much more complete by a collection of a greater number of facts in elucidation of the general argument. But a long and almost total interruption, from very particular business, joined to a desire (perhaps imprudent) of not delaying the publication much beyond the time that he originally proposed, prevented the Author from giving to the subject an undivided attention. He presumes, however, that the facts which he has adduced, will be found, to form no inconsiderable evidence for the truth of his opinion respecting the future improvement of mankind. As the Author contemplates this opinion at present, little more appears to him to be necessary than a plain statement, in addition to the most cursory view of society, to establish it.

It is an obvious truth, which has been taken notice of by many writers, that population must always be kept down to the level of the means of subsistence; but no writer, that the Author recollects, has inquired particularly into the means by which this level is effected: and it is a view of these means, which forms, to his mind, the strongest obstacle in the way to any very great future improvement of society. He hopes it will appear that, in the discussion of this interesting subject, he is actuated solely by a love of truth; and not by any prejudices against any particular set of men, or of opinions. He professes to have read some of the speculations on the future improvement of society, in a temper very different from a wish to find them visionary; but he has not acquired that command over his understanding which would enable him to believe what he wishes, without evidence, or to refuse his assent to what might be unpleasing, when accompanied with evidence.

The view which he has given of human life has a melancholy hue; but he feels conscious, that he has drawn these dark tints, from a conviction that they are really in the picture; and not from a jaundiced eye or an inherent spleen of disposition. The theory of mind which he has sketched in the two last chapters, accounts to his own understanding in a satisfactory manner, for the existence of most of the evils of life; but whether it will have the same effect upon others, must be left to the judgement of his readers.

If he should succeed in drawing the attention of more able men, to what he conceives to be the principal difficulty in the way to the improvement of society, and should, in consequence, see this difficulty removed, even in theory, he will gladly retract his present opinions and rejoice in a conviction of his error.

Malthus on Population

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• Joseph R Burger 3 , 4  

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An Essay on the Principle of Population ; Exponential growth ; Malthusian growth

An Essay on the Principle of Population by Thomas Robert Malthus ( 1798 ) is a book widely viewed as having profound impact on the biological and social sciences by recognizing basic biophysical, demographic, and economic principles that can lead to population growth and possible collapse.

Introduction

Be fruitful and multiply. Fill the earth and govern it. Reign over the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, and all the animals that scurry along the ground. – Genesis 1:28

The power of population is indefinitely greater than the power in the earth to produce subsistence. – Malthus 1798

An Essay on the Principle of Population by the Reverend, Political Economist, and Demographer, Thomas Robert Malthus (1766–1834), is perhaps the most important document ever published on population, yet its central thesis continues to be highly controversial between natural and social scientists today....

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Burger, J.R. (2021). Malthus on Population. In: Shackelford, T.K., Weekes-Shackelford, V.A. (eds) Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Psychological Science. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-19650-3_1267

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Malthus�s Population Principle Explained

By Frank W. Elwell

This essay is a faithful summary of Malthus�s original 1798 �Principle of Population .� While nothing will substitute for reading the original essay with an open mind, I hope this summary will go some way toward rehabilitating this man�s reputation.

Here is the key to that riddle: Malthus made the mistake of illustrating the unequal powers of production and reproduction with a mathematical illustration. He supposes that when unchecked, the earth�s human population would double every twenty-five years (a good estimate consistent with current knowledge). Agricultural production at best, he argues, could not possibly keep pace.

He knows full well that population cannot grow long beyond the means of subsistence (�population must always be kept down to the means of subsistence�), he is simply trying to illustrate to his readers the unequal powers of growth in population and food production and therefore the necessity of checks on population. At one point in the Essay he even states: �I am sufficiently aware that the redundant twenty-eight millions, or seventy-seven millions, that I have mentioned, could never have existed� (63). But for various reasons many critics have taken this mental experiment as the theory of population itself and delight in writing that Malthus was wrong, that overshoot and collapse did not occur. Contrary to popular belief (and the belief of many who should know better), Malthus did not predict a future in which population would outrun food supply and eventually collapse.

Other critics write that Malthus was wrong because he did not take into account the possibility of dramatic increases in the production of food. Many criticize him for not taking into account the revolution in agriculture. But he anticipated this argument as well:

No limits whatever are placed to the productions of the earth; they may increase for ever and be greater than any assignable quantity, yet still the power of population being a power of a superior order, the increase of the human species can only be kept commensurate to the increase of the means of subsistence by the constant operation of the strong law of necessity acting as a check upon the greater power (9-10).

What are these checks that Malthus writes about? They are of two types: �Preventive checks� come into play through the �foresight of the difficulties attending the rearing of a family� (22). They include celibacy, contraception, and various forms of non-procreative sex. �Positive checks,� are the �actual distresses of some of the lower classes, by which they are disabled from giving the proper food and attention to their children� (22). Under this heading Malthus includes extreme poverty, diseases, plague, malnutrition, wars, infanticide, and famine. Positive checks are far more likely to operate within poor populations; preventive checks among the upper classes. In Malthus�s view, both positive and preventive checks�or the ways a people go about controlling their fertility�will greatly impact the rest of the sociocultural system.

Malthus�s principle of population is basically the law of supply and demand applied to the relationships between food production and population growth , which he makes clear time and again throughout the Essay. As the food supply increases, food becomes cheaper, and more children are brought into the world. As there are more mouths to feed, food becomes more expensive, thus causing stress on families, more children dying or steps taken to prevent conception itself. As food prices rise, more land is put under the plow, or greater efforts made in intensifying the production of the land itself.

Because people can reproduce faster than they can increase the production of food, population must always be checked through positive or preventive means. This and nothing more, is Malthus�s �Principle of Population.� Over the course of sociocultural evolution, however, the long-term tendency has been for both productivity and population to intensify. This reciprocal growth, of course, has great effect on other parts of the sociocultural system.

For a more extensive discussion of Malthus�s theories refer to Macro Social Theory by Frank W. Elwell.  Also see Sociocultural Systems: Principles of Structure and Change to learn how his insights contribute to a more complete understanding of modern societies.

Bibliography

Elwell, F. (2009), Macrosociology: The Study of Sociocultural Systems . Lewiston: Edwin Mellen Press.

Elwell, F. (2013), Sociocultural Systems: Principles of Structure and Change. Alberta: Athabasca University Press.

Malthus, T. R. (Thomas Robert) (2012-05-12). An Essay on the Principle of Population.   Kindle Edition.

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To reference Malthus's Population Principle Explained you should use the following format: 

Elwell, Frank W., 2003, "Malthus's Population Principle Explained," Retrieved August 31, 2013, [use actual date] http://www.faculty.rsu.edu/~felwell/Theorists/Essay/Malthus1.htm 

�2013 Frank Elwell, Send comments to felwell at rsu.edu

An Essay on the Principle of Population [1798, 1st ed.]

• Thomas Robert Malthus (author)

This is the first edition of Malthus’s Essay on the Principle of Population. In this work Malthus argues that there is a disparity between the rate of growth of population (which increases geometrically) and the rate of growth of agriculture (which increases only arithmetically). He then explores how populations have historically been kept in check.

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An Essay on the Principle of Population, as it affects the future Improvement of Society, with Remarks on the Speculations of Mr. Godwin, M. Condorcet, and Other Writers (London: J. Johnson 1798). 1st edition.

The text is in the public domain.

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Critical Responses

William Godwin

A lengthy and belated reply to Malthus by the radical individualist Godwin. Whereas Malthus took a pessimistic view of the pressures of population growth, Godwin was more optimistic about the capacity of people to limit the growth of their families.

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Econlib Article

Morgan Rose

Thomas Robert Malthus is arguably the most maligned economist in history. For over two hundred years, since the first publication of his book An Essay on the Principle of Population, Malthus’ work has been misunderstood and misrepresented, and severe, alarming predictions have been attached to his…

Malthus had no objection to the idea that wealth derived from manufacturing production could, subject to certain hindrances, be exchanged to increase the amount of food available. He seems only to have misjudged the degree to which those hindrances would be reduced over time. He did not recognize…

What to read next.

Ross Emmett

While many liberty-loving economists are happy to correct the criticisms of Smith, many are equally happy to criticize Malthus for the Malthusian trap, not realizing that the usual portrayal of Malthus is equally false. Malthus shares far more with Smith than most expect. He is, in many ways, as…

• An Essay on the Principle of Population Summary

by Thomas Malthus

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Malthus observes that humans tend to like having sex, which means that inevitably (especially before modern contraceptives) humans would likely continue to make children at a constant rate. But since two people can have more than two children, and each of those children can have even more children, population growth is not arithmetical, but rather geometric.

What Malthus means by 'arithmetical' and 'geometric' is simply that some systems produce at the level of addition and subtraction, and other systems work differently. If it works by process of addition, it is arithmetical, and if it works by process of multiplication, such as population growth, it is geometric.

So Malthus concludes from that basic study of the systems of population growth that we can expect the population to double every 25 years. By the way, Malthus's mathematical analysis is understood by most people to be incorrect, but his idea is still powerful. Could humans populate at such a rate that eventually, we exhaust our resources, and what would happen if that were the case?

He then explains that he is not predicting a doomsday, or an apocalypse, but rather, that given our understanding of mathematics, humans should begin to consider their effect on the environment as an exponentially powerful animal, since our biological existence means that we must sustain ourselves by using natural resources.

Malthus continues by explaining that many of the variables in the sustainability question are fluid, such as the potential development of new technologies to advance agriculture and infrastructure. Instead of offering a creative solution, he leaves the question open for audience participation, because after all, we're all on the same planet, so overpopulation is a risk that could potentially effect the entire race if not treated with scientific attention.

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An Essay on the Principle of Population Questions and Answers

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An Essay on the Principle of Population study guide contains a biography of Thomas Malthus, literature essays, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis.

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An Essay on the Principle of Population essays are academic essays for citation. These papers were written primarily by students and provide critical analysis of An Essay on the Principle of Population by Thomas Malthus.

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An Essay on the Principle of Population begins with an appraisal of the technological discoveries that allowed for great societal changes in Malthus’s time. The pronounced advancements in the fields of natural philosophy, printing, and politics have encouraged a positive outlook on the perfectibility of humankind. Philosophers and other influential figures are fervently hooked to this topic: whereas some optimistically believe humankind may one day achieve perfection, others argue there is absolutely no escaping from “a perpetual oscillation between happiness and misery,” no matter how much growth is observed in society (1). Whereas conservative thinkers dismiss new ideas as “silly speculations,” progressives likewise believe their opponents profit too much from the abuses of society to modify their prejudiced outlooks (2). Malthus laments the lack of communication between these opposite factions and points out both are so concerned with dismissing the arguments of the other they have lost their drive to search for the truth.

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Analysis and ideology in Malthus's Essay on Population

• PMID: 12318508
• DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-8454.1992.tb00564.x

PIP: The author develops the argument that Robert Malthus's Essay on Population was primarily intended to refute the ideas of human perfectibility advanced by Condorcet and Godwin, and in particular as a response to their attacks on the concept of property. A reconstruction of Malthus's economic analysis is attempted in order to capture in mathematical form what his production function would have been, and to analyze the relationship between population growth and food supply.

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• Food Supply*
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• Population Dynamics*
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THOMAS MALTHUS ESSAY ON POPULATION

Thomas Malthus perspective on the population is no doubt the most elaborate as far of Population analysis is concerned. His insight on the correlation between population growth and resources available serves as the basis of population management worldwide. The ideas Thomas hypothesized in his essay on population have been applied immensely not only in academic disciplines but also in social policy making by providing remedies to problems associated with population growth.

Related Papers

Lafia Journal of History and International Development

Yusuf I Z A N G Elijah

This study examines the disequilibrium between increase in population growth and food supply in Nigeria, using the Malthusian theory of population as a paradigm. The objective of this paper is to critically analyse if the "Malthusian Theory of Population" applies to the Nigeria's contest or not? In order to answer this question, the paper assessed the factors that cause increase in population growth in Nigeria and the factors that hinder food production. The findings of this paper reveal that the Malthusian theory of population addresses the question of increase in population growth and food insecurity in Nigeria. According to the findings, Population tend to be increasing in a multi-geometrical progression and food supply increase in an arithmetical progression, thereby creating an imbalance between population growth and food supply. The methodology adopted for this paper is basically primary and secondary, using systematic content analysis of the Malthusian population thesis and the question of food insecurity. The research concludes by way of providing forward looking suggestions on how to balance the disequilibrium between population growth and food supply in Nigeria.

Hafeez Nizami

Amuj Isokum

Nnamdi Ezebuiro

The study examined the attitude of Ebonyi State University undergraduates towards use of family planning devices with particular reference to undergraduate students of Social Studies. The research objectives were set to determine the attitude of the undergraduate students towards the use of condom as a device, to determine the attitude of the undergraduate students towards the use of withdrawal method as a device and to ascertain the attitude of the undergraduate students towards the use of oral contraceptive pills. Three research questions were formulated in line with the research objectives. The descriptive survey design was adopted. The population of study consisted of the 180 undergraduate students of Social Studies, Ebonyi State University. The sample size comprised 160 undergraduate students of Social Studies selected using simple random technique. The instrument for data collection was a structured questionnaire. Mean and standard deviation was used for data analysis. The findings showed that undergraduates of Ebonyi State University shows negative attitude towards the use of condoms, the students showed a positive attitude towards the use of withdrawal method and the students showed positive attitude towards the use of oral contraceptive pills. From the findings, it was recommended that Undergraduates should endeavor to abstain from sexual activities, but if they cannot abstain from sex before marriage, they should use contraceptives. Lecturers should periodically give students advice on use of contraceptives and that Parents should give their children sex education.

Valérie Boissonneault EXport Québec

Ayodele Odusola

This paper examines the role of poverty in Nigeria's fertility transition using household survey data from Nigeria – Kaduna and Lagos states – of which 2425 respondents were sampled. In Nigeria, much attention has not been paid to the link between poverty and fertility preferences. This paper is aimed at filling this research gap. It uses univariate and bivariate analyses in examining the proximate determinants of fertility dynamics with particular emphasis on the role of income poverty. One of the variants of fertility preferences used is the number of children respondents desired after their experiences with economic hardship-declining standard of living. Evidence from the study shows that majority of the respondents from the northern part desired more children than their southern counterparts, which partly conforms to spatial distribution of poverty. Due to higher incidence of poverty among rural dwellers, they now prefer lower fertility formation. In the absence of poverty, however, fertility rate is lower in urban areas due to education and exposure to family planning services. Generally, respondents who agreed that poverty had affected their economic expectations and attitude about large family size and now desire lower fertility rate compared to those that were indifferent or held opposing views. Other proximate determinants of fertility dynamics are women education, religion, spousal communication and spousal approval of contraceptive usage, male dominance, spousal age difference, polygyny and early marriages. In addition to investing in basic education and health care delivery that offer substantial synergies for empowerment and economic opportunities thereby promoting lasting growth and reducing poverty, the following also deserves attention. Special family planning programmes should be targeted at men, particularly in the northern part of the country. Promotion of high level female education because of its synergy with better living conditions contraceptive usage, spousal communication, and low fertility preference. Promotion of peer-wise marital union, monogamy, and late marriages is also important. The need for committed and pro-active promotion of a culture of low fertility preference using the above methods, among others, is fundamental to maintaining this transition to low fertility. Otherwise, the emergence of better economic conditions in the future would reverse the fertility trend.

Shubhradeep Majumdar

There are several studies on how population growth affects the economic development of a nation, yet there is another to examine the relation from another perspective. Some researchers argue that population growth hinders development, some counter it, and some say there is no correlation between the two. I try to find the relation empirically and get the results to support the counter argumentations.

Bulletin of the World Health Organization

Deborah McFarlane

Aqib Qureshi

geofrey nayingo

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• Israeli Views of the Israel-Hamas War

Jewish Israelis and Arab Israelis see the war very differently

Table of contents.

• Views of the Israeli military response against Hamas
• Attitudes toward Israel’s war cabinet
• Current concerns about the war
• Confidence in Biden
• Views of how Biden is handling the Israel-Hamas war
• Who is Biden favoring in the conflict, or is he striking the right balance?
• Views of the U.S.
• Who Israelis want to play a role in diplomatically resolving the war
• Success against Hamas
• Israel’s future national security
• The future of Gaza
• Views of Palestinian leaders
• Palestinian statehood and coexistence
• Acknowledgments
• Methodology

This Pew Research Center analysis covers Israeli attitudes on the Israel-Hamas war, including opinions on how it’s being conducted, the country’s future, Israeli political leaders and the United States’ role in the conflict.

The data is from a survey of 1,001 Israeli adults conducted face-to-face from March 3 to April 4, 2024. Interviews were conducted in Hebrew and Arabic, and the survey is representative of the adult population ages 18 and older, excluding those in East Jerusalem and non-sanctioned outposts. (The survey also did not cover the West Bank or Gaza.) The survey included an oversample of Arabs in Israel. It was subsequently weighted to be representative of the Israeli adult population with the following variables: gender by ethnicity, age by ethnicity, education, region, urbanicity and probability of selection of respondent.

Here are the questions used for the report, along with responses, and the survey methodology .

A new Pew Research Center survey finds that 39% of Israelis say Israel’s military response against Hamas in Gaza has been about right, while 34% say it has not gone far enough and 19% think it has gone too far.

According to the survey, conducted in March and early April, roughly two-thirds of Israelis are also confident that Israel will either probably (27%) or definitely (40%) achieve its goals in the war against Hamas. Still, majorities of Israeli adults are worried about aspects of the ongoing war: 

• 61% say they are extremely or very concerned about the war expanding into other countries in the region.
• 68% say they are extremely or very concerned about the war going on for a long time.

When it comes to what should happen after the war, there is less consensus. A 40% plurality of Israelis think Israel should govern the Gaza Strip. Smaller shares think Gazans should decide who governs (14%) or would like to see a Palestinian Authority national unity government either with (6%) or without (12%) President Mahmoud Abbas (also known as Abu Mazen) in leadership.

Separately, 26% of Israelis think a way can be found for Israel and an independent Palestinian state to coexist peacefully with each other – down from  35% who said the same last year , prior to the war, and about half as many as took that position when the question was first asked in 2013.

Research in the West Bank and Gaza

Pew Research Center has polled the Palestinian territories in previous years, but we were unable to conduct fieldwork in Gaza or the West Bank for our March/April 2024 survey due to security concerns. We are actively investigating possibilities for both qualitative and quantitative research on public opinion in the region and hope to be able to provide more data in the coming months.

These are among the key findings of a new survey of 1,001 Israelis, conducted via face-to-face interviews from March 3 to April 4, 2024.

The survey also asked Israelis about the U.S. role in the conflict. (It was conducted before U.S. President Joe Biden took a tougher stance toward Israel in the wake of an Israeli airstrike that killed seven World Central Kitchen aid workers. And it predates Biden’s declaration that the U.S. would not provide offensive weapons to Israel in the event of a Rafah invasion as well as the subsequent Israeli strikes in Rafah .)

The survey shows:

• 60% of Israelis disapprove of the way Biden is handling the Israel-Hamas war.
• 41% think Biden is striking the right balance between Israelis and Palestinians. Still, 27% of Israelis say he is favoring Israelis too much, while roughly the same share (25%) say he favors Palestinians too much.
• Most Israelis express confidence in Biden to handle world affairs and have a favorable view of the U.S. But ratings of both Biden and the U.S. have fallen at least 10 percentage points since last year. (For more on this, read “How Israelis and Americans view one another and the U.S. role in the Israel-Hamas war.” )

Nonetheless, a large majority (72%) still want the U.S. to play a major role in diplomatically resolving the war – more than say the same about any of the other countries or organizations asked about, including Egypt (45%), Saudi Arabia (29%), Qatar (27%) and the United Nations (24%).

Arab and Jewish Israelis

People across Israeli society perceive the war in vastly different ways, depending on their views of the current leadership, how they identify ideologically, their religious backgrounds and other factors. One of the starkest divides is between Arab and Jewish Israelis:

• Arab Israelis are less likely than Jewish Israelis to think Israel will succeed in achieving its war aims (38% vs. 76%) and less optimistic when thinking about the future of the country’s national security (21% vs. 63%).
• Israeli Arabs are much more likely than Jews to say the country’s military response has gone too far (74% vs. 4%).
• Almost no Israeli Arabs (3%) want Israel to govern the Gaza Strip after the war, while half of Israeli Jews think it should do so. A plurality of Arabs would like the people who live in Gaza to decide who governs (37%), while only 8% of Jews prefer this outcome.
• Arab Israelis have much less favorable views of the U.S. than Jewish Israelis do (29% vs. 90%), as well as less confidence in Biden (21% vs. 66%). They are also much more likely to disapprove of Biden’s handling of the war (86% vs. 53%) and to think he favors Israelis too much (86% vs. 11%).
• Although a majority of Arabs (63%) want the U.S. to play a major role in diplomatically resolving the war between Israel and Hamas, an even greater share of Jewish Israelis (74%) want this. And roughly two-thirds of Arabs are open to Qatar and Egypt playing a major role, while only about four-in-ten Jews or fewer say the same.
• Roughly nine-in-ten Arabs (92%) have a negative view of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, compared with around half of Jews (48%). Views of the two other war cabinet members , Benny Gantz and Yoav Gallant, are also divided along ethnic lines. (The survey was conducted before Gantz threatened to leave the war cabinet .)

In many cases, there are also large ideological differences, with Israelis who describe themselves as being on the left generally more critical of Israel’s war response, less optimistic about its success and more critical of the U.S. than those on the right. There also tend to be differences among Israeli Jews based on how religiously observant they are. For more on how we looked at these differences, refer to the box below.

Jewish religious groups in Israel: Haredim, Datiim, Masortim and Hilonim

Nearly all Israeli Jews identify as either Haredi (commonly translated as “ultra-Orthodox”), Dati (“religious”), Masorti (“traditional”) or Hiloni (“secular”). The spectrum of religious observance in Israel – on which Haredim are generally the most religious and Hilonim the least – does not always line up perfectly with Israel’s political spectrum. On some issues, including those pertaining to religion in public life, there is a clear overlap: Haredim are furthest to the right, and Hilonim are furthest to the left, with Datiim and Masortim in between. But on other political issues, including those related to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and views of the United States, differences between religious groups do not always mirror those between people at different points on the ideological spectrum. Because of sample size considerations, we combine Haredim and Datiim for analysis in this report.

For more information on the different views of these religious groups, read the Center’s 2016 deep dive on the topic, “Israel’s Religiously Divided Society.”

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How Americans and Israelis view one another and the U.S. role in the Israel-Hamas war

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ABOUT PEW RESEARCH CENTER  Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan fact tank that informs the public about the issues, attitudes and trends shaping the world. It conducts public opinion polling, demographic research, media content analysis and other empirical social science research. Pew Research Center does not take policy positions. It is a subsidiary of  The Pew Charitable Trusts .

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Guest Essay

Biden Wants to Send Billions to Rural America, but This Must Happen First

By Tony Pipa

Mr. Pipa is a senior fellow at the Center for Sustainable Development at the Brookings Institution.

President Biden regularly emphasizes how the major pieces of legislation he has signed — the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, the CHIPS and Science Act and the Inflation Reduction Act — expand opportunities for Americans.

This is especially true for rural Americans. Those three laws appropriated billions of dollars — about $464 billion — for many projects that could be particularly relevant to rural communities, allowing them to dream of a different economic future.

I am often asked if rural voters will give Mr. Biden credit for all that money and the changes it could bring and will show their appreciation at the ballot box. My answer is that it is unrealistic to expect place-specific investments to have an immediate impact on elections.

Rural places remain skeptical that federal policymakers have their best interests at heart. Proving otherwise will take intention and time.

Above all, implementation matters. These investment opportunities will be meaningless unless they reach rural America. For that to happen, federal and local officials and many people in between will need to focus on intentional targeting and sensitivity to the challenges that rural places face.

It is important to keep in mind that many rural governments are led by unpaid elected officials, and few rural city halls have staffs to work on planning, project development and grant writing.

Only 15 percent of Michigan’s smallest jurisdictions , for example, express confidence in their ability to get access to federal grants, whereas the rate for jurisdictions over 30,000 people is close to 40 percent. A national survey published in 2019 found more than half of rural counties experienced moderate or significant fiscal stress, so for programs where local governments must match the federal funding, those counties face an additional challenge.

This does not bode well for equitable distribution of those federal investments. According to analysis I did with a fellow researcher, just 2 percent of the appropriations in the bills are reserved exclusively for rural places. Getting any of the remainder means vying successfully with larger jurisdictions.

The demand among rural and small towns clearly exists. For two new programs geared toward energy improvements in remote and rural communities under 10,000 people, the Department of Energy received more than 1,000 submissions combined. The new Recompete pilot program , intended to enable economic renewal in distressed places and overseen by the Economic Development Administration at the Department of Commerce, received a deluge of 565 applications — the most applications the development agency has received for a national program in its history. About half of the areas that were eligible are rural.

The scale of interest compounds the challenge. These and other programs’ popularity, combined with rural communities’ limited resources, means that success rates will be exceptionally low. It highlights the importance of leveling the playing field so the most vulnerable communities are not left out.

A critical first step will be to make sure that local communities have the staff and access to the expertise and administrative capacity necessary to secure and manage these investments.

As the Biden administration makes major investments in creating technical assistance centers in communities across the country, rural places must get to participate and benefit.

Congress also has a vital and continuing role to play. The Rural Partnership and Prosperity Act is bipartisan legislation that has been proposed in the Senate and the House of Representatives , and it is now included in the negotiations for the 2024 Farm Bill . Such a measure could be a game changer in getting flexible support directly to rural partnerships so they can unlock these opportunities.

The processes and requirements to gain access to those investments could also be simplified; no one should be required to fill out a 400-page application. We’ve already seen some improvements. The administration has put so-called navigators in selected communities to help them identify funding opportunities, and some agencies like the U.S. Forest Service have modified their processes to help communities apply for grants. These advances ought to be more widely adopted across the federal government.

States or financial and nonprofit intermediaries will also have the final say on the fate of much of the investment that is important for rural places, like broadband and water .

It’s not just about access to these opportunities. The extent to which local communities are in the driver’s seat and how widely the benefits accrue beyond local elites will be instrumental in avoiding the extractive practices that have often haunted rural economies. This means taking the time and providing the chance for people to influence the decisions that will affect them.

Take rural Humboldt County, Calif., where plans are underway to put immense wind turbines off its coast, a clean energy installation large enough to provide 6 percent of the state’s supply of electricity. A decision is pending by a state agency as to whether any of that electricity will land in Humboldt itself, where some federally recognized Native tribes do not have dependable power to this day.

The biggest risk is that politics stop the momentum created by these laws, because the investments are just getting started. For example, the money has not even begun to flow to local projects from the infrastructure act’s signature $42.5 billion investment to close the broadband gap .

Leading policy voices on the right have proposed dissolving or consolidating agencies like the Economic Development Administration and pulling these resources without offering an alternative vision for supporting rural development. That will simply once again starve rural places of investment. It does not seem like a long-term winning strategy.

Nor does vilifying an entire segment of the rural population based on specious analysis , as parts of the liberal elite seem wont to do.

The struggles that portions of rural America are experiencing were decades in the making. Common sense dictates that the solutions will not transpire overnight. Congress and the Biden administration have put the initial pieces in place to help many rural places transition to a brighter economic future. The president’s campaign pitch to rural voters ought to be the opportunity to stay the course. The political rewards may be far in the future, but it’s the right thing for rural communities — and for the country.

Tony Pipa is a senior fellow at the Center for Sustainable Development at the Brookings Institution, where he leads the Reimagining Rural Policy Initiative and hosts the “ Reimagine Rural ” podcast.

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