Earlier this week, the great rural blog The Daily Yonder posted a cool map of government data of average compensation in rural counties (includes wages, employer contributions for pension plans, insurance plans, government social insurance and bonuses). Here’s the post and a larger version of the map.

The data is from 2008, which might be a bit dated given the recession that’s deepened since then, but it’s the newest stuff we have. Central Nebraska generally doesn’t fare too well, with most of its counties shaded in some form of red, representing the lowest pay categories on the map. Garfield County, home of Burwell, has the lowest average compensation in Nebraska at $28,383, good for seventh-lowest in the United States.

A little ways south of Garfield County, Sherman County (county seat: Loup City) comes in 36th-lowest in the nation at $30,092. In between the two are two other Nebraska counties, Boyd in the far northern part of the state and McPherson in the Sandhills.

On the higher end of the area’s pay scale were Hall and Buffalo counties, home to Grand Island and Kearney, Hamilton County (Aurora) and Wheeler County, a sparsely populated county just east of Garfield County in the Sandhills. And judging by one of the lower maps on the post, many of Central Nebraska’s wages went up from 2007 to 2008, even as much of the rest of the country was dropping.

Of course, what’s not taken into account in these statistics is cost of living, and a dollar goes a lot farther in Burwell than Chicago, or even Omaha. Still, this is a not a great list to be on if you’re trying to attract new families.

So what say you? Are these statistics discouraging or meaningless? Or do they even reveal something encouraging?