Family life in rural America is often presumed to provide individuals with social support and the healthcare and financial resources needed to live a good life and promote longevity. However, the same demographic, economic, and epidemiological changes (e.g., declining fertility, labor force discouragement, heighted midlife mortality) that make family life a particularly necessary source of support may also have greatly shifted who rural adults do or do not live with. Specifically, rural adults may be increasingly living alone relative to their urban peers. Living alone has well-documented associations with poverty as well as physical and mental health, and the milieu of rural areas may make these associations particularly strong. While rates of living alone are known to be on the rise among rural older adults, less is known about trends for rural adults in early or midlife or how living alone may uniquely impact rural midlife adults’ well-being. In this study, we use data from the Current Population Survey and a series of logistic regressions to test rural and urban disparities and subsequent changes therein from 1996-2025 regarding midlife adults’ (1) rates of living alone, (2) socioeconomic correlates (e.g., education, employment) of living alone, and (3) associations between living alone and SPM poverty and poor self-rated health. We focus on three distinct age groups—young adults (18-34), early midlife (35-49), and later midlife (ages 50-64)—and disaggregate between females and males, given the gendered nature of living alone. Our findings have the ability to provide an empirical baseline for a potentially increasingly isolated rural population in early and midlife and evidence to inform the targeted interventions that may be needed to reduce the negative associations of living alone on rural individuals’ wellbeing.