Keeping retirement-age citizens is a challenge for agricultural-dependent counties. Losing them to areas with better scenery and services comes at a cost.

In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes." Benjamin Franklin wrote that in a letter pondering this nation's new constitution. Now some rural counties are wishing Franklin's famous line were true. To be precise, death and taxes are still certain. But citizens of rural and heavily agricultural-dependent counties are finding that people, especially retirement-age people, can move away to pay taxes and die somewhere else. And they're doing so, leaving in their wake a noticeable loss of income in the affected counties.

Daryl Hobbs, professor emeritus of sociology at the University of Missouri-Columbia and leader of the Office of Social and Economic Data there, explained the phenomena.

"As a broad sweeping statement, people don't retire on good farmland; they retire on bad farmland," said Hobbs, referring to places with a high value in natural amenities such as sweeping vistas, lakes and woods.

"So rural north Missouri does not attract people relocating from someplace else, especially to retire," said Hobbs.

In a report for the Economic Research Service, an arm of the USDA, counties were scored with criteria to describe their natural amenities, attributes aside from local economies that make them a desirable place to live.

"People move to or stay in rural areas not only to enjoy a slower paced, less congested, community-centered life, but also to enjoy the outdoors," said the authors of the report. "Temperate climate, ponds and lakes and hills and mountains enhance [the desirability].

"One of the problems facing areas with extensive farming is that the best cropland tends to be the lowest in natural amenities--where land is flattest and least broken up by ponds and lakes, where the winters are wettest and where the summers are hottest and most humid. In general, the lower a county's score on the natural amenities scale, the higher the proportion of land in crops."

For Hobbs, however, the telling statistic, and one that is important for rural economies, is the age group that is moving away. Hobbs pointed out that rural, agricultural-dependent counties have actually picked up younger population according to the last census. But people aged 64 to 85 are dwindling in areas where farming is the leading economic engine. Again, land that is good for agriculture, full of rolling, fence-to-fence row crops isn't much of a draw for the retirement class.

The importance of the retiree age group, according to Hobbs, is their wealth and the money they contribute through normal spending and government transfer payments into the local economy--and increasingly in our mobile society, their willingness to move away.

Hobbs said that the casual observer may not understand the importance of transfer payments to the rural economy. In many rural counties, transfer payments in one form or another account for nearly 20 percent of all personal income.

"What really makes a difference is that transfer payments include all those things we, 'earn'," said Hobbs.

He said at the time there was so much discussion of "reforming welfare," that what many may consider welfare payments (such as unemployment) made 3 to 4 percent of all transfer payments.

In dollars, that's a big number, but Hobbs pointed out that "welfare" payments are dwarfed by something he prefers to call entitlements: Payments that citizens have earned through paying into the system.

By category, these payments are the bulk of transfer spending--about 80 percent.

"They are two things," said Hobbs. "Social Security and medical payments. Half the medical is Medicare. The other half is Medicaid. What that means to our economy is very significant.

"Go to any county in rural north Missouri and ask what the backbone of the economy is and you'll be told, 'Oh, farming.' But agriculture may contribute 6 percent [of total personal income].

"It is important that people realize the magnitude of transfer payments as a percent of total personal income."

He said it isn't a statistic that should be used as an alarmist trumpet, but it is important to consider in the overall economic health of a county. Hobbs pointed out that aside from agriculture, the good jobs in a rural county are in health care and schools. Given the fact that 64- to 85-year-olds are among the biggest spenders for health care, their loss is damaging to that sector of the economy.

You can do the math. If 20 percent of a county's total personal income is from transfer payments and 40 percent of all transfer payments are either Medicare or Medicaid, losing the retiree class (the very people who qualify for these programs) is a hit to local health care.

"[There is a county in southwest Missouri where], 47 percent of total personal income was transfer payments and another 25 percent was dividends, interest and rent. So only 30 percent was from people having a business or job," said Hobbs.

"Show this to the Chamber of Commerce and jaws drop."

If they're leaving rural, agricultural-dependent counties, where is the retiree class going? A look at the statistics that Hobbs and company have boiled down into maps shows how in-state migration is going for Missouri. Counties with fewer natural amenities are losing population to suburbia and recreation counties around Lake Ozark and in southwest Missouri's complex of suburban settings, lakes and Ozark scenery and its entertainment-based economy.

Statistics from the Missouri Office of Administration give credence to the trend. While these aren't specific to the 64- to 85-year-old cohort, they bear out the growth trend. The state government numbers show that from the time of the 2000 census to July 1, 2002, the state population increased by 77,368 people (with less than half moving in from other states) to total 5.6 million. That's a growth rate of 1.4 percent compared to the national rate of 2.5 percent for the same period. The 10 fastest-growing counties, in percentage terms, between 2000 and 2002 were Christian (8.9 percent), Lincoln (8.6 percent), Texas (7.1 percent), Warren (6.8 percent), St. Charles (6.7 percent), Cass (6.4 percent), Platte (5.3 percent), Webster (5.2 percent), and Pulaski (5.1 percent) with Mississippi and Clay tied for 10th at 4 percent. Most of these counties fit the bill of metro/suburban expansion (read: urban sprawl) around the St. Louis, Kansas City and Springfield areas. The counties not adjacent to metro areas had easily identified circumstances. Texas and Mississippi counties are homes to new prisons. Pulaski County had an influx of military personnel at Fort Leonard Wood.

This population trend leaves rural, agricultural-based counties with more to worry about than just attracting industry and hoping for a prosperous agricultural economy. It means they must address maintaining and attracting the kinds of services necessary to retain the retiree class.

Natural amenities and services are sought by people with the means to move and little left to tie them to a particular geography.

And that's what places like southwest Missouri and retirement states like Florida have. They have scenery, they have recreation and thanks to the demand borne from pensioners in the past, these places have top-notch health and retirement services.

Civic leaders in a rural agricultural-dependent county may understand the economic value in keeping retirees, and maybe even the importance of drawing new ones. But few economic development councils harbor enough fortitude to roll out the "Our county is a great place to spend your health care money" campaign. A county in rural north Missouri is as good a place to retire and spend health care and other savings and entitlement income as the next. But the golf is better in Arizona. It's what people want to do during those final, golden years that motivates them to move.

The ERS reported in 2002, "All growth rates for both elderly and younger people are much higher for nonmetro recreation counties than for any other[s]. In the 1990s, both older and younger populations had net migration into recreation counties of better than 12 percent."

While the mind's eye may picture Florida and Arizona benefiting from such migration, it is by no means a Sunbelt-specific trend.

ERS reports indicate, indeed, some areas of recreation-based growth are places with warm winters, but the majority are in scattered locations such as the hills and mountains of the Ozarks, the Adirondacks, the Catskills, the Great Smokies and the Rockies. As these areas become destinations for the retiree class, they also attract younger people and enjoy economic benefits from the arrival of the working population that supports the recreation-based residents.

The trend for population increases in and near recreation counties looks to be around for the long term. It brings with it plenty of ramifications for the counties with out-migration. Especially for rural, agricultural-dependent counties, losing retiree-aged population might be more than a trend to watch. It might be one to do something about.