Demographic and Socioeconomic Change 

in Appalachia 

LABOR MARKET PERFORMANCE, POVERTY, AND 

INCOME INEQUALITY IN APPALACHIA 

by 

Dan A. Black 

Syracuse University 

Seth G. Sanders 

University of Maryland 

September 2004

 

 

 
About This Series 

“Demographic and Socioeconomic Change in Appalachia” is a series of reports that examine 

demographic, social, and economic levels and trends in the 13-state Appalachian region. Each 

report uses data from the decennial censuses of 1990 and 2000, plus supplemental information 

from other data sources. 

Current reports in the series include: 

• “Appalachia at the Millennium: An Overview of Results from Census 2000,” 

by Kelvin M. Pollard (June 2003). 

• “Housing and Commuting Patterns in Appalachia,” by Mark Mather (January 2004). 

• “The Aging of Appalachia,” by John G. Haaga (April 2004). 

• “Households and Families in Appalachia,” by Mark Mather (May 2004). 

• “Educational Attainment in Appalachia,” by John G. Haaga (May 2004). 

• “A ‘New Diversity’: Race and Ethnicity in the Appalachian Region,” 

by Kelvin M. Pollard (September 2004). 

• “Labor Market Performance, Poverty, and Income Inequality in Appalachia,” by Dan A. 

Black and Seth G. Sanders (September 2004). 

• “Population Growth and Distribution in Appalachia: New Realities,” 

by Kelvin M. Pollard (forthcoming). 

• “Appalachian Population redistribution and Migration in the 1990’s,” 

by Daniel T. Lichter, Jillian Wooten, Michael Cardella, Mary L. Marshall (forthcoming). 

Additional reports will cover: Migration and Immigration; Population Change and Distribution; 

and Geographic Concentration of Poverty. 

You can view and download the reports by visiting either www.prb.org or www.arc.gov. 

For more information about the series, please contact either Kelvin Pollard of the Population 

Reference Bureau (202-939-5424, kelvinp@prb.org) or Gregory Bischak of the Appalachian 

Regional Commission (202-884-7790, gbischak@arc.gov). 

The authors wish to thank the Appalachian Regional Commission for providing the funding for 

this series. 

Population Reference Bureau 

1875 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 520 

Washington, DC 20009-3728 

The Population Reference Bureau is the leader in providing timely and objective information on 

U.S. and international population trends and their implications. 

Appalachian Regional Commission 

1666 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 700 

Washington, DC 20009-1068 

The Appalachian Regional Commission’s mission is to be an advocate for and partner with the 

people of Appalachia to create opportunities for self-sustaining economic development and 

improved quality of life. 
INTRODUCTION 

 When President Lyndon Johnson attempted to galvanize public support for his War on 

Poverty, he traveled on April 24, 1964 to the little town of Inez, located in Martin County, 

Kentucky. Through that visit, Americans saw poverty that shocked them. Indeed, the 1970 

Census found the per capita personal income of Martin County was only 34.5 percent that of the 

United States as a whole. By the next census, however, Martin County’s per capita income, 

riding the OPEC-induced coal boom, was 80.5 percent of the national average. But as the price 

of oil dropped, western states increased their coal production, and technological advances in the 

coal industry decreased mining employment. Martin County’s economy declined until, by the 

2000 Census, its per capita income was only 54.7 percent of the national average. 

 While Martin County, with its severe poverty, may fit the American stereotype of 

Appalachia, the region is considerably more complex. Appalachia comprises 13 different states 

and stretches from central New York to central Mississippi. It includes large cities such as 

Pittsburgh and small villages such as Inez. In this article, we explore the performance of the 

Appalachian economies during the 1990s and then examine how these economies fared over a 

longer horizon, from 1970 to 2000. 

Aims 

 The aims of this article are two-fold. First, it examines the performance of the 

Appalachian economy and how residents of Appalachia have fared between 1990 and 2000. The 

article will describe Appalachia as a whole as well as its important subregions, which are defined 

geographically—southern Appalachia, central Appalachia, and northern Appalachia. The 

economic classifications of these subregions are then defined either by their economic structure 

or their level of economic distress. Of course, the industrial structure or level of economic 

distress of counties can change over time, so when analyzing this type of classification we need 

to ask certain questions, such as: “How did counties that were distressed in 1990 fare over the 

next 10 years?” We have to define a base year to construct the level of distress of an area or its 

industrial composition and then follow this area over time. For the first part of our analysis we 

define 1990 as the base year and measure changes between 1990 and 2000. What defines the 

level of economic distress or the industrial composition is discussed in great detail below. 

 Our second aim is to put the current economic conditions in historical context by 

comparing Appalachia to areas that are historically similar in terms of economic distress and 

economic structure. Through this analysis, we hope to answer the question: “How has 

Appalachia fared over the last 30 years relative to areas that historically faced similar 

conditions?” We also hope to begin to understand why disparities between Appalachia and 

historically similar areas have occurred. 

Background 

During the 1980s, Appalachian families experienced rising rates of poverty and growing 

income inequality. These trends reflected trends that held in the United States as well. For 
2 

instance, for the United States as a whole, the poverty rate increased from 13.0 percent in 1980 to 

13.2 percent in 1990, while in Appalachia the poverty rate increased from 14.1 percent in 1980 

to 15.4 percent in 1990. For the United States as a whole, there is mounting evidence that, 

beginning in the mid-1990s, after nearly 20 years of rising income inequality and poverty, a slow 

but steady decline in both statistics occurred. For instance, by 2000 the poverty rate fell to 12.4 

percent for the United States as a whole and to 13.7 percent for Appalachia. Figure 1 shows 

national trends both in the number in poverty and in the poverty rate. 

Figure 1 

Number of Poor and Poverty Rate: 1959 to 2002 

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

45

1959

1965

1970

1975

1980

1985

1990

1995

2002

Number in millions, rates in percent

Recession

Number in poverty

Poverty rate

Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Current Population Reports P60-222, “Poverty in the United States: 2002.” 

The reasons for the rise and fall in poverty and income inequality are far from clear. 

Prominent economists have investigated the role of globalization, increased international trade, 

de-industrialization, and technical change, but there has been no definitive resolution to the 

question. One prevailing theory is that growth in the economy takes some time to help those 

individuals who are the least skilled, and the unprecedented prosperity of the United States over 

the last 20 years took many years to raise the level of prosperity of the least skilled. 
3

There are only a handful of papers investigating trends in income inequality and poverty 

on a regional level from 1970 to 1990, even though there are tremendous differences across 

regions in their percentages of residents in poverty, their levels of income inequality, and their 

degrees of sustained economic prosperity.1

 There is virtually no work on these issues on a 

regional basis over the 1990s. 

OUTCOMES OF INTEREST AND DATA SOURCES 

There are two sources of data that help us describe the economic outcomes of local 

economies and the economic performance of individuals in those economies. The first source is 

data from the Decennial Census. Every 10 years, the United States Census Bureau engages in a 

complete enumeration of the United States population. In conducting this enumeration, the 

Census Bureau collects a great deal of information on the characteristics of the population and 

the housing stock. There is a small set of questions asked of every household in the United States 

called the short form: it includes questions about sex, age, race, Hispanic ethnicity, whether the 

home is owned or rented, and whether the home is vacant. The long form contains a much more 

detailed set of questions for a sample of the population, approximately 1 in 6 households. Longform data includes marital status, place of birth, citizenship, year of entry into United States for 

immigrants, school enrollment and attainment, migration over the past five years, language 

ability, veterans status, disability, grandparents as caregivers, place of work, labor force status, 

occupation and industry, work status, and income. This information allows many measures of the 

economic well-being of families, including unemployment of adults in the household and the 

poverty status of households. For the 2000 Census, as it has done for many years, the Census 

Bureau provides public release tabulations from this data at levels of small geographic 

aggregation, including the county level. The following are outcomes of interest from the 

Decennial Censuses that measure the health of the local economy and the well-being of families: 

• Poverty rates for families, households, individuals, and children; 

• The level of median income for married couples, single-parent families, and unmarried 

households; 

• The labor force participation and unemployment rates for men and women at various 

ages and levels of educational attainment, as well as for blacks, whites, and Hispanic 

individuals; and 

• The jobs mix in the economy as measured by changes in the distributions of industries 

and occupations. 

The second source of data is from the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA), Regional 

Economic Information System (REIS). BEA prepares the only detailed, broadly inclusive 

economic time series for local areas (counties, metropolitan areas, and BEA economic areas) that 

is available annually. Estimates of total and per capita personal income, beginning with 1969, are 

available for each of the 3,110 counties and county equivalents and 335 metropolitan areas of the 

United States. BEA also provides detailed annual estimates of earnings and employment by 

industry, transfer payments by major program, farm gross income, and expenses by major 

category. This data represents tabulations from reports from the ES202 database, an 
4 

administrative database created for collection of unemployment insurance taxes by each state. 

(The Unemployment Insurance system covers about 95 percent of all employment, and the BEA 

supplements this data with estimates of earnings and employment for non-covered jobs.) We are 

interested in the following outcomes from the REIS data: 

• The level of reliance on transfer programs such as the Temporary Assistance for Needy 

Families Program (TANF), food stamps, unemployment insurance, social security, and 

supplemental security insurance; and 

• Annual data on income, earnings, and employment. 

Both the United States Census data and the BEA data have some data missing for some 

counties but for different reasons. The Census has missing data when respondents refuse to 

answer a question or when a question is answered in a way that is inconsistent with other 

answers. The Census Bureau has a long tradition of imputing the missing data. After imputing 

this data, the Census Bureau then releases tabulations from the Census survey. Because these 

tabulations are only available including imputed data, our estimates include Census Bureau 

imputations. 

The REIS system is derived from administrative data, so no information is missing. 

Under some circumstances, however, the BEA does not release some of its data elements and 

instead suppresses the data field for some counties in some years to protect the confidentiality of 

firms or individuals in the database. There is a large debate in the statistics field regarding how to 

analyze data with such missing data elements. If the data were missing at random, then dropping 

counties from the analysis would leave estimates unbiased. However, it is smaller counties and 

counties in which rare events occur whose data are more often suppressed. Our solution is 

essentially to classify counties into groups and then impute the mean value within the group for 

counties with suppressed data. This is the same as assuming the data is missing at random within 

the group.2

ANALYSIS OF CONTEMPORARY APPALACHIA 

Sub-regions and Economic Classifications of Analysis 

 In our analysis, we divide Appalachia into three different classification schemes. First, 

we use the Appalachian Regional Commission’s (ARC) geographically based subregions: 

northern, central, and southern Appalachia. Second, we use the ARC grouping of counties by 

success of the local economy: distressed, transitional, attainment, and competitive. Third, we 

group counties by the primary economic activity in the county: metropolitan areas, farming 

areas, mining areas, manufacturing areas, government-dependent areas, and nonspecialized 

areas. In the next two subsections, we provide a detailed description of these economic 

characterizations. 

Unlike ARC geographic sub-regions, both a county’s level of economic distress and its 

primary economic activity change over time. For our analysis of contemporary Appalachia, 

therefore, it is necessary to define an area at a specific point in time. One issue raised by this 

approach is that some of the outcomes that we investigate—for example, the poverty rate—are 
5

themselves part of the definition of the level of economic distress. Therefore, it would make little 

sense to talk about the high rates of poverty in “distressed” areas, as a “distressed” area is 

defined as having a high rate of poverty (among other characteristics). For the analysis of 

contemporary statistics, we make our base year 1990 and measure changes between 1990 and 

2000. 

Levels of Economic Distress 

A note about exactly how we classify counties into levels of economic distress in 1990 is 

in order. The ARC has a rich tradition of classifying each county in Appalachia into one of four 

levels of economic development—distressed, transitional, competitive, and attainment. In fact, 

the ARC has an official 1990 ARC designation of the level of economic development for each 

county. We do not use this official designation, but instead construct our own classifications, and 

the reasons for this shift are important to understand. The purpose of the ARC classification 

system is as a management tool, not as a research tool. Because of this, the ARC does not need to 

go to great lengths to make the classification of counties consistent over time; in fact, the 

classification of counties by ARC has a lengthy history of change. First, in 1988, the commission 

opted to freeze the number of distressed counties between 1988 and 1992 because the decennial 

census data would not be available for at least three years (there were 90 distressed counties in 

FY1990). In late 1992, the 1990 Census became available, and the commission added 27 

counties to the distressed list, increasing the number of distressed counties from 90 to 117 for 

FY1993. Between 1994 and 1996, the commission recognized the need to reexamine its 

distressed county program and opted to freeze the number once again at 115. Beginning in 

FY1997, the data drove the economic designations, and the commission rationalized the system 

for adding or deleting distressed counties. 

A related but separate issue to the economic classification of Appalachian counties is the 

actual number of counties mandated by Congress as part of the Appalachian Region. In 1965, 

after the inclusion of the New York Appalachian region, the ARC included 373 counties in 12 

states (excluding Mississippi). In 1967, 20 counties from Mississippi were added, along with two 

from Alabama (Lamar and Pickens), one from New York (Schoharie), and one from Tennessee 

(Cannon) for a total of 397 counties. In 1990, Columbiana County, Ohio, was added; and in 

1991, Calhoun County, Miss., was added, bringing the total to 399 counties. In FY1999, eight 

more counties were added: Hale and Macon in Alabama; Elbert and Hart in Georgia; Yalobusha 

in Mississippi; and Montgomery, Radford, and Rockbridge in Virginia, for a grand total of 406 

counties. The seven counties were added under Section 1222 of the TEA21 bill entitled the 

“Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century,” as reported in the Conference Report on HR 

2400, Congressional Record, May 22, 1998. On March 12, 2002, President Bush’s signature of 

ARC’s five-year reauthorization added four more counties in FY2003, including Hart and 

Edmonson, Ky., and Panola and Montgomery, Miss., bringing the grand total of Appalachian 

counties to 410 in FY2002. 

There is one final nuance about ARC’s economic designation process: the formal fourlevel designation of economic status for counties was only finalized in FY1997. The 1997 ARC 

classification system allows the ARC to target counties in need of special economic assistance. 
6 

Four economic levels were created based on the comparison of three county economic indicators 

(three-year average unemployment, per capita market income, and poverty) to their respective 

national averages. Data for the average unemployment rate is taken from the Bureau of Labor 

Statistics; data for per capita income is obtained from the Bureau of Economic Analysis, the 

Regional Economic Information System (REIS); and data for the poverty rate is obtained from 

the 1990 Census. Table 1 describes the 1997 ARC county economic levels. 

 

Table 1 

County Economic Indicators

County 

Economic 

Levels

Three-Year Average 

Unemployment Rate

Per Capita 

Market 

Income

Poverty Rate

Distressed 150% or more of 

United States average 

67% or less of 

United States 

average 

150% or more of United 

States average 

Transitional All counties not in other classes. Individual indicators vary. 

Competitive 100% or less of 

United States average 

80% or more 

of United 

States 

average 

100% or less of United 

States average 

Attainment 100% or less of 

United States average 

100% or more 

of United 

States 

average 

100% or less of United 

States average 

Source: Authors’ calculations from data obtained from Appalachian Regional Commission (accessed at 

www.arc.gov/search/method/cty_econ.jsp). 

We have two challenges that do not let us use the 1990 ARC official classification of 

counties. First, there are several counties that were part of Appalachia in the year 2000 that were 

not part of Appalachia in 1990. These counties do not appear in the 1990 ARC official list of 

levels of economic distress. Second, as we detail above, the 1990 classification schema and the 

schema post-1997 vary considerably. Therefore, a county that is labeled “distressed” under one 

schema may or may not be labeled distressed under the second schema, even when the different 

schema applied to the same 1990 levels of per capita income, poverty, and unemployment would 

yield different classifications. We attempt to mimic the 1997 scheme for earlier years of data, a 

shift that requires some modifications. 

This issue of how to make levels of economic distress historically comparable was first 

addressed by Wood and Bischak,3

 and we follow their methodology closely. One challenge in 

following this paradigm, however, is that unemployment rates are available for all counties in 

each census year but are not necessarily available in the year before and after the census year. 

This data gap makes implementing the three-year average unemployment rate difficult. For this 
7

reason, Wood and Bischak substitute the census unemployment rate in constructing historically 

comparable ARC economic levels outside Appalachia. These rates are conceptually different in 

two ways. First, the census unemployment statistic reflects a one-year rate rather than a threeyear rate. Second, the census measure may differ simply because the data source differs. 

Empirically, the switch from a three-year rate to a one-year rate makes little difference. In 

addition, most of the existing difference comes from differences between Census and BLS 

unemployment statistics, rather than the switch from a three-year average rate to a one-year rate. 

Table 2 

1990 ARC Classification

 

Percentage of People 

[Number of People] 

Percentage of Counties 

[Number of Counties] 

 

Appalachia United States Appalachia United States 

Distressed 

12.8 

[2,700,451] 

4.7 

[11,752,398] 

28.3 

[116] 

14.3 

[440] 

Transitional 

67.8 

[14,264,674] 

55.0 

[136,327,365] 

62.4 

[256] 

65.7 

[2020] 

Competitive 

13.8 

[2,902,256] 

9.9 

[24,524,356] 

7.3 

[30] 

11.9 

[367] 

Attainment 

5.5 

[1,162,276] 

30.3 

[75,119,311] 

2.0 

[8] 

8.0 

[246] 

Total 

100.00 

[21,029,657] 

100 

[247,723,430] 

100.0 

[410] 

100.0 

[3073] 

 Source: Authors’ calculations. 

Table 2 displays the fraction and number of counties as well as the fraction and number 

of people that live in counties that were classified in each of the four ARC categories in 1990. 

While in the United States, only 14.3 percent of counties are classified as economically 

distressed, fully 28.3 percent of Appalachian counties are so classified. And while 30.3 percent 

of people in the United States live in a county that has reached “attainment,” only 5.5 percent of 

Appalachian residents live in a county that has done so. Figure 2 (page 12) is a map of the United 

States by ARC categories defined as of 1990. Figure 3 (page 12) is a similar map for Appalachia. 

It is clear that, in 1990, Appalachia was much more economically distressed than the United 

States as a whole, and that the central area of Appalachia, including West Virginia and Eastern 

Kentucky, had particularly high levels of economic distress. Looking back at Figure 2, one sees 

that several areas of the United States stand out as having a level of economic distress in 1990 

similar to Appalachia—the Mississippi Delta Region, the Rio Grande Region, and the Ozark 

Mountain Region. We return to these similarities below. 
8 

Figure 2 

Source: Authors’ analysis. 

Figure 3

Source: Authors’ analysis. 
9

Primary Economic Activities 

We construct U.S. Department of Agriculture Economic Research Service (ERS) 

categories based on data from 1989. The ERS classifies counties first into metropolitan and 

nonmetropolitan areas and further subdivides nonmetropolitan areas by their primary economic 

activity. Metropolitan areas contain: (1) core counties with one or more central cities of at least 

50,000 residents or with a Census Bureau-defined urbanized area (and a total metro area 

population of 100,000 or more); and (2) fringe counties that are economically tied to the core 

counties. Nonmetropolitan counties are outside the boundaries of metro areas and have no cities 

with as many as 50,000 residents. Within nonmetropolitan counties, ERS defines the following 

county types (by fraction of county earnings in that source): farming dependent (20 percent or 

more); mining dependent (15 percent or more); manufacturing dependent (30 percent or more); 

government dependent (25 percent or more); and nonspecialized (NEC). These classifications are 

based on data from the REIS, and ERS provides the classifications for every county in the United 

States. The 1989 ERS classification is used here. 

Table 3 

1989 ERS Classification 

 

Percentage of People 

[Number of People] 

Percentage of Counties 

[Number of Counties] 

Appalachia United States Appalachia United States 

Farming 

0.4 

[89,389] 

2.0 

[4,951,522] 

1.7 

[7] 

18.5 

[568] 

Mining 

6.1 

[1,274,162] 

1.2 

[2,844,894] 

10.0 

[41] 

4.8 

[146] 

Manufacturing 

20.8 

[4,367,085] 

6.4 

[15,804,932] 

31.5 

[129] 

16.5 

[506] 

Government 

2.0 

[411,228] 

2.6 

[6,334,185] 

6.1 

[25] 

7.7 

[235] 

Services 

6.1 

[1,285,857] 

3.8 

[9,350,576] 

8.1 

[33] 

10.4 

[320] 

Nonspecialized 

7.1 

[1,494,908] 

4.5 

[11,045,131] 

16.1 

[66] 

15.7 

[482] 

Metro 

57.6 

[12,107,028] 

79.6 

[196,308,563] 

26.6 

[109] 

26.4 

[809] 

Total 

100.00 

[21,029,657] [246,639,803] 

100.0 

[410] 

100.0 

[3066]* 

* ERS classified 3066 counties in the 48 contiguous states in 1989. 

 Source: Authors’ calculations. 

Figures 4 through 6 below are maps of the United States based on 1989 ERS categories. 

Figures 7 through 9 contain similar maps for Appalachia. It is clear that in 1989, Appalachia was 

much more dependent on manufacturing and mining and much less dependent on farming than 

the United States as a whole. Table 3 displays the fraction of counties and the fraction of people 

that were in each ERS category in 1990. While 80 percent of U.S. residents lived in metropolitan 

areas, only 57 percent of Appalachian residents did so. Among non-metro areas, 27 percent of 

Appalachian residents lived in counties where mining or manufacturing was the primary 

economic activity; in the United States as a whole, 7 percent of residents lived in such counties. 
10 

Figure 4 

Figure 5 

Source: Authors’ analysis of data from U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, Rural Economic Information System, 

and from U.S. Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service. 
11

Figure 6 

Source: Authors’ analysis of data from U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, Rural Economic Information System, 

and from U.S. Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service. 
12 

Figure 7 

Figure 8 

Source: Authors’ analysis of data from U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, Rural Economic Information System, 

and from U.S. Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service. 
13

Figure 9 

Source: Authors’ analysis of data from U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, Rural Economic Information System, 

and from U.S. Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service. 

Weighted and Unweighted Statistics 

When we produce statistics, we produce them for Appalachia and comparison counties, 

both unweighted and population weighted. The unweighted statistics are calculated by first 

calculating a statistic for each county (say, the poverty rate) and then calculating the simple 

average across all relevant counties (e.g., all counties in Appalachia, all counties in an ERS 

category in Appalachia, etc.). This calculation answers the question, “What is the average 

outcome for the typical county in the category?” For example, what is the average poverty rate 

for counties in Appalachia? 

Population weighted statistics, on the other hand, are the weighted average of relevant 

statistics where weights are proportional to the population size of each county. This calculation 

answers the question, “What is the average outcome for a typical person in a category?” For 

example, what is the average rate of poverty for people in Appalachia? Counties with large 

populations will heavily influence the latter statistic. For example, for statistics on Appalachia as 

a whole, the outcomes of just five counties—Allegheny County, Pa. (Pittsburgh); Jefferson 

County, Ala. (Birmingham); Gwinnett County, Ga. (Lawrenceville Area); Knox County, Tenn. 

(Knoxville); and Greenville County, S.C. (Greenville)—contain approximately 15 percent of the 

population of all 410 counties in Appalachia in 1990. We present the unweighted statistics in the 

text and tables of weighted statistics in Appendix A. 
14 

Results 

Changes in Poverty Rates 

 Table 4 (page 20) presents the fraction of households, children, families, and individuals 

in poverty for Appalachia as a whole, Appalachia by subregion, and the United States as a 

whole. A family consists of two or more individuals (one of whom is the householder) related by 

birth, marriage, or adoption and residing in the same housing unit. A household consists of all 

individuals who occupy a housing unit regardless of relationship. The Census Bureau considers 

individuals under age 18 as children. 

For each of these groups, Appalachia has traditionally had a higher poverty rate than the 

United States as a whole. For example, in 1990, the average county-level poverty rate for 

households in Appalachia was 20 percent, while the average rate for the United States was 17 

percent. (A three percentage-point difference in the average poverty rate of households implies 

that the rate of household poverty was 15 percent higher in Appalachia). These county-level rates 

refer to unweighted statistics and represent what the county household poverty rate was on 

average in Appalachia and in the United States. A second statistic, the fraction of households 

below the poverty line, is calculated by weighting the county-level household poverty rate by the 

number of households in each county. These statistics are reported in Table A4 in the Appendix. 

They show that 16.1 percent of households in Appalachia were in poverty in 1990; in the United 

States as a whole, 12.7 percent of households were in poverty (implying that on average, the 

fraction of households in Appalachia in poverty was 21 percent higher than the United States as a 

whole). Appalachia was poorer than the United States as a whole, based either on statistics that 

reflect the average rate in counties or on statistics that reflect the average rate of poverty of all 

households. In general, the weighted and unweighted results tell the same story. For the 

remainder of this section, we discuss only the unweighted statistics. 

Looking across poverty measured for four groups (households, children, families, and 

people), we see that between 1990 and 2000, the poverty rate in Appalachia decreased 

substantially (between 11 percent and 18 percent). While this was a large reduction in poverty, 

the reduction mimicked the national trend (a reduction of between 14 percent and 18 percent). As 

a result, in 2000, the gap in the poverty rate between the United States and Appalachia as a 

whole was nearly identical to what it had been in 1990. 

Within Appalachia there has traditionally been variation in the poverty rate. For example, 

in 1990, counties in central Appalachia had on average a poverty rate of 29 percent among 

households. In northern Appalachia, this rate was 17 percent, and in southern Appalachia, it was 

19 percent. While the central region had the largest absolute reductions in poverty, the 

percentage change in the poverty rate across subregions was similar. When we classify 

Appalachia by its level of economic distress, however, a clear pattern emerges. Poverty rates 

have declined much more among counties that were more distressed in 1990 than for those that 

were closer to the U.S. average in their level of development. For example, the rate of poverty 

among children declined by 14 percent and 11 percent in distressed and transitional counties, 

respectively, while it actually increased slightly in attainment counties. This “regression towards 

the mean” implies that the level of economic development is growing more equal across counties 

in Appalachia. 
15

Table 4 

Poverty Statistics for Appalachia Region and the United States 

 Year 

Fraction of 

Households in 

Poverty 

Fraction of 

Children (0-17) in 

Poverty 

Fraction of 

Families in 

Poverty 

Fraction of 

Population in 

Poverty 

Appalachia 1990 0.201 0.239 0.154 0.191 

 2000 0.170 0.212 0.127 0.164 

% ∆ -15% -11% -18% -14% 

 

United States 1990 0.171 0.214 0.131 0.167 

 2000 0.142 0.184 0.107 0.142 

% ∆ -17% -14% -18% -15% 

Appalachia 

 Northern 1990 0.167 0.216 0.129 0.165 

 2000 0.146 0.192 0.107 0.145 

% ∆ -13% -11% -17% -12% 

 Central 1990 0.286 0.342 0.241 0.279 

 2000 0.242 0.303 0.193 0.234 

% ∆ -15% -11% -20% -16% 

 Southern 1990 0.186 0.207 0.132 0.169 

 2000 0.155 0.184 0.110 0.145 

% ∆ -17% -11% -17% -14% 

Appalachia 

 Distressed 2000 0.245 0.315 0.197 0.241 

% ∆ -16% -14% -21% -17% 

 Transitional 2000 0.147 0.178 0.104 0.139 

% ∆ -15% -10% -15% -13% 

 Competitive 2000 0.103 0.128 0.071 0.099 

% ∆ -10% -4% -9% -5% 

 Attainment 2000 0.080 0.099 0.058 0.080 

% ∆ -9% 4% -2% 0% 

Appalachia 

 Farming 2000 0.199 0.234 0.150 0.188 

% ∆ -23% -16% -25% -21% 

 Mining 2000 0.241 0.313 0.198 0.239 

% ∆ -10% -7% -15% -11% 

 Manufacturing 2000 0.161 0.196 0.117 0.153 

% ∆ -17% -11% -16% -14% 

 Government 2000 0.246 0.305 0.187 0.242 

% ∆ -18% -13% -22% -18% 

 Services 2000 0.172 0.225 0.128 0.169 

% ∆ -14% -11% -19% -14% 

 Metro 2000 0.126 0.159 0.090 0.121 

% ∆ -14% -10% -14% -11% 

 Nonspecialized 2000 0.183 0.224 0.137 0.175 

% ∆ -18% -15% -20% -17% 

Source: Authors’ calculations. 
16 

 

Finally, we address the changing rate of poverty for counties with various primary 

economic activities. Traditionally, counties engaged in farming (seven counties), mining (41 

counties), and government (25 counties) have had the highest poverty rates in Appalachia. In 

1990, the poverty rate in farming counties was 26 percent, in mining counties 25 percent, and in 

government counties 29 percent. Table 4 shows that the reduction in poverty varied a great deal 

by primary economic activity. Farming counties had an impressive 23 percent reduction in the 

fraction of households in poverty; mining counties had only a 10 percent reduction in this rate. 

This reflects the continual national trend of reduced mining employment with increased capital 

intensity of that industry. The reduction in poverty among farming communities stems from a 

broadening economic base in these counties. One indication of this is that, while 44 counties had 

farming as a primary economic activity in 1970, by 1990 only seven counties remained with 

farming as their primary economic activity (17 had moved to nonspecialized economies, 11 to 

manufacturing economies, nine to government-based economies, and two to mining-based 

economies). The seven counties where farming was the primary economic activity in 1990 are: 

Cherokee County, Ala.; Banks County, Ga.; Casey County, Ky.; Green County, Ky.; Adams 

County, Ohio; Hancock County, Tenn.; and Highland County, Va. 

Changes in Earnings 

 Table 5 presents the median and mean family earnings for family and non-family 

households in Appalachia. Many of the trends seen in the poverty statistics in Table 4 are 

mimicked for average family earnings. In general, there was a 13 percent increase in the county 

level of average household family income in Appalachia and a 26 percent increase in the county 

level of average household non-family income in Appalachia. These increases in average 

earnings are similar to the United States as a whole. The rise in mean family earnings was larger 

than the rise in the average of median family income, reflecting that the rise in income at the top 

of the earnings distribution was larger than at lower levels of income. But again, this disparity 

appears to reflect a national trend. The central and southern regions of Appalachia appear to have 

had family and non-family income grow faster than the northern area. Again, distressed areas of 

Appalachia appear to have had household income rising faster than more developed areas. For 

example, median household income increased 11 percent in distressed areas, 6 percent in 

transitional areas, 3 percent in competitive areas, and 6 percent in attainment areas. There also 

appear to be differences across counties with differing primary economic activities. Farming and 

government counties had the largest increases in household income, while mining and 

manufacturing areas had the slowest increases. 
17

Table 5 

Median Income for Appalachia Region and the United States

 Year 

Median 

Household 

Income 

Median 

Family 

Income 

Median Non 

Family 

Household 

Income 

Average 

Family 

Household 

Income 

Average Non 

Family 

Household 

Income 

Appalachia 1990 30,437 35,930 14,811 42,480 19,865 

2000 32,464 39,055 16,856 48,210 25,054 

% ∆ 7% 9% 14% 13% 26% 

 

United States 1990 34,046 39,670 18,401 46,844 23,303 

 2000 36,503 43,496 20,111 53,205 28,330 

% ∆ 7% 10% 9% 14% 22% 

Appalachia 

 Northern 1990 32,204 38,096 16,584 44,563 21,601 

2000 33,699 40,729 18,102 49,369 26,117 

% ∆ 5% 7% 9% 11% 21% 

 Central 1990 23,765 28,328 11,079 35,202 16,003 

2000 25,623 31,234 12,706 40,540 20,834 

% ∆ 8% 10% 15% 15% 30% 

 Southern 1990 32,271 37,895 15,188 44,342 20,345 

 2000 34,822 41,536 17,875 51,006 26,251 

% ∆ 8% 10% 18% 15% 29% 

Appalachia 

 Distressed 2000 25,525 31,116 12,741 40,046 20,904 

% ∆ 11% 12% 16% 16% 29% 

 Transitional 2000 33,888 40,829 17,550 49,810 25,708 

% ∆ 6% 8% 14% 13% 26% 

 Competitive 2000 41,879 49,148 23,300 59,643 31,394 

% ∆ 3% 6% 8% 12% 19% 

 Attainment 2000 52,213 59,671 30,055 72,513 40,560 

% ∆ 6% 8% 8% 13% 19% 

Appalachia 

 Farming 2000 28,931 35,054 14,166 44,144 21,492 

% ∆ 12% 12% 32% 20% 23% 

 Mining 2000 25,602 31,247 13,306 40,112 20,641 

% ∆ 4% 5% 8% 9% 19% 

 Manufacturing 2000 32,290 38,655 16,416 47,541 24,544 

% ∆ 7% 9% 17% 14% 30% 

 Government 2000 26,011 32,608 13,331 41,309 21,406 

% ∆ 14% 17% 19% 20% 25% 

 Services 2000 31,578 38,156 16,492 48,459 26,032 

% ∆ 7% 8% 11% 14% 28% 

 Metro 2000 38,260 45,770 20,460 55,321 28,828 

% ∆ 4% 7% 8% 12% 22% 

 Nonspecialized 2000 30,704 36,845 15,733 45,724 23,832 

% ∆ 11% 12% 22% 16% 31% 
18 

Source: Authors’ calculations. 

Changes in Labor Force Status 

Table 6 presents two measures of labor force status: the labor force participation rate and 

the unemployment rate for individuals ages 16 to 64. The labor force participation rate is the 

proportion of the available “working age” population that is willing and able to work and is 

either employed or actively seeking employment during the week the census was taken. The 

unemployment rate is the fraction of individuals in the labor force who are without a job and 

currently searching for work. Table 6 presents the labor force participation rate for all persons, as 

well as separately for men and women; it also presents the unemployment rate for all men as 

well as for men by racial group. 

 Several patterns emerge. While there has been virtually no change in the average countylevel labor force participation rate, this lack of rate change masks an important compositional 

change. The average county-level labor force participation rate for men has been declining for 

many years, while the labor force participation rate of women has been increasing for many 

years. This substitution in labor force participation between men and women is particularly 

noticeable in distressed counties and mining counties. Between 1990 and 2000, the average 

county-level labor force participation rate of men in the United States declined by 4 percent on 

average, while it rose 6 percent for women. Historically, Appalachia has had lower rates of labor 

force participation for both men and women. Over the 1990s, the average county-level labor 

force participation rate for men declined 6 percent, while the average county-level labor force 

participation rate for women increased by 4 percent. As a result, in 2000, both men and women 

in Appalachia participated in the labor force at a lower rate than in the United States as a whole. 

The unemployment rate of men in Appalachia appears to have decreased more between 

1990 and 2000 than for the United States as a whole. This disparity, however, obscures an 

important fact about unemployment rates: the local unemployment rate is sensitive to the racial 

and ethnic composition of its population because rates of unemployment vary enormously across 

groups. When we break unemployment rates out by racial and ethnic group, we see that the white 

unemployment rate declined much faster in Appalachia than for the United States as a whole. 

The black unemployment rate declined by only 1 percent in Appalachia, while it declined 6 

percent in the United States as a whole; and while Hispanics in the United States experienced an 

impressive 12 percent decline in their unemployment rate, in Appalachia the Hispanic 

unemployment rate actually increased by 6 percent. The unemployment rate of distressed 

Appalachian counties declined dramatically—driven mostly by the large decline for white 

men—but blacks in distressed Appalachian counties showed a less dramatic improvement. 

Hispanic unemployment experienced a 23 percent increase in distressed Appalachian counties. 

By several measures, the southern region of Appalachia showed less improvement in the 

labor markets than the central or northern areas. For example, while unemployment decreased 20 

percent in the northern region and 28 percent in the central region, it declined only 14 percent in 

the southern region. Of course, the level of unemployment was lower in 1990 in the south and it 

remained lower in 2000 than in either the central or northern regions. 
19

Table 6 

Employment Rates for Appalachia Region and the United States

 Year 

Labor Force 

Participation: 

All Persons 

Men’s Labor 

Force 

Participation

Women’s 

Labor Force 

Participation

Unemployment Rate: 

Male 

Unemployment Rate: 

White Male 

Unemployment Rate: 

Black Male 

Unemployment Rate: 

Hispanic 

Appalachia 1990 0.574 0.674 0.483 0.080 0.076 0.153 0.085 

2000 0.570 0.642 0.503 0.064 0.059 0.151 0.090 

% ∆ -1% -5% 4% -20% -22% -1% 6% 

 

United States 1990 0.604 0.697 0.518 0.066 0.057 0.141 0.091 

2000 0.606 0.669 0.547 0.057 0.049 0.132 0.080 

% ∆ 0% -4% 6% -14% -14% -6% -12% 

Appalachia 

 Northern 1990 0.562 0.670 0.464 0.091 0.089 0.195 0.134 

2000 0.574 0.646 0.507 0.072 0.070 0.183 0.112 

% ∆ 2% -4% 9% -20% -21% -6% -16% 

 Central 1990 0.515 0.621 0.417 0.113 0.112 0.172 0.055 

2000 0.509 0.575 0.448 0.081 0.080 0.175 0.118 

% ∆ -1% -7% 7% -28% -29% 2% 114% 

 Southern 1990 0.612 0.703 0.530 0.056 0.049 0.113 0.058 

 2000 0.597 0.673 0.527 0.048 0.040 0.117 0.059 

% ∆ -2% -4% -1% -14% -18% 4% 2% 

Appalachia 

 Distressed 2000 0.500 0.566 0.439 0.090 0.083 0.201 0.134 

% ∆ 0% -7% 10% -29% -30% -9% 23% 

 Transitional 2000 0.591 0.665 0.522 0.055 0.051 0.135 0.075 

% ∆ -1% -4% 3% -16% -18% -1% -7% 

 Competitive 2000 0.639 0.714 0.569 0.042 0.038 0.142 0.065 

% ∆ -2% -4% 1% -7% -11% 54% 18% 

 Attainment 2000 0.671 0.752 0.594 0.040 0.032 0.099 0.054 

% ∆ -2% -4% -1% -2% -14% 27% 20% 

Appalachia 

 Farming 2000 0.563 0.651 0.479 0.047 0.045 0.227 0.116 

% ∆ -1% -3% 0% -34% -35% 233% 315% 

 Mining 2000 0.478 0.546 0.415 0.101 0.098 0.217 0.128 

% ∆ 1% -9% 16% -24% -24% -10% -9% 

 Manufacturing 2000 0.583 0.657 0.515 0.054 0.049 0.120 0.075 

% ∆ -2% -5% 1% -20% -23% -13% -13% 

 Government 2000 0.514 0.576 0.457 0.092 0.082 0.281 0.099 

% ∆ 2% -2% 7% -26% -29% 47% 150% 

 Services 2000 0.551 0.619 0.489 0.075 0.069 0.250 0.131 

% ∆ 0% -4% 6% -18% -20% 79% -16% 

 Metro 2000 0.613 0.688 0.543 0.053 0.049 0.121 0.069 

% ∆ 0% -4% 4% -16% -19% -17% -8% 

 Nonspecialized 2000 0.564 0.635 0.497 0.062 0.058 0.132 0.105 

% ∆ -1% -5% 4% -23% -24% -10% 133% 

Source: Authors’ calculations. 
20 

 

Changes in Federal Assistant Program Expenditures

Traditionally, Appalachia has had higher than average payments from four federal 

assistance programs: Food Stamps; Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI); Temporary 

Assistance for Needy Families (TANF); and Supplemental Security Income (SSI). The Food 

Stamp Program enables low-income families to buy food with coupons or through Electronic 

Benefits Transfer (EBT) cards. SSDI benefits are paid to disabled individuals who have worked 

five out of the last 10 years. SSI benefits are paid to individuals who are poor and disabled, 

regardless of whether or not the individual has worked in the past. TANF (formerly Aid to 

Families with Dependent Children, or AFDC) provides income supplements to poor families 

with children, but the program has work requirements that vary by state. 

Table 7 presents the per capita use of these programs in Appalachia and the United 

States. Clearly, for the Food Stamp Program as well as for SSI, per capita payments per county 

in Appalachia were higher than in the United States as a whole in 1990. This reflects both higher 

rates of poverty and disability in Appalachia. Per capita, TANF payments were about the same in 

Appalachia as in the United States as a whole. TANF benefits, however, vary by state, and the 

average payment per family was much higher in states outside of Appalachia. For example, in 

1998, the average payment per family in the United States was $529. The average benefit in 

Kentucky and Tennessee (the two lowest benefit states) was $283, and the highest benefit state in 

Appalachia—Pennsylvania—paid average benefits per family just above the national mean of 

$537.4

 Real payments per capita for TANF and the Food Stamp Program declined throughout 

the United States over the 1990s, and Appalachia mimicked the national trend. But while SSI per 

capita nationally increased by 22 percent on average in a county, in Appalachia SSI per capita 

increased 31 percent. This increase appears driven by large increases in SSI per capita in the 

northern and central regions of Appalachia, with strong declines in the southern region. 

Distressed areas and mining-dependent areas (many located in the central region) appeared to 

have had particularly large increases in SSI. SSI is thought of as the program of last resort for the 

disabled. It is a means-tested program. Because SSDI benefits are larger than SSI benefits, only 

poor individuals with irregular work histories enroll when disabled. For this reason, the rise in 

SSI benefits in distressed central mining regions is a bad omen indicating low availability of jobs 

and high rates of disability. 

 Appalachia also had a much larger growth in use of Disability Insurance than the United 

States as a whole, with an increase of 20 percent versus the United States’ increase of only 12 

percent. The regional increase is concentrated in the farming and mining counties, which 

increased 27 percent and 28 percent, respectively. However, the growth in Disability Insurance 

payments in Appalachia was larger than the national average for each economic category. 
21

Table 7 

Social Program Expenditures per Capita 

for Appalachia Region and the United States 

 Year 

Food Stamps Disability 

Insurance TANF 

Supplemental 

Security Income 

(SSI) 

Appalachia 1990 $120.26 $1429.40 $63.37 $131.31 

2000 $77.34 $1721.22 $33.72 $172.61 

% ∆ -36% 20% -47% 31% 

 

United States 1990 $92.00 $1457.63 $66.44 $87.63 

2000 $59.06 $1636.11 $37.81 $106.87 

% ∆ -36% 12% -43% 22% 

Appalachia 

 Northern 1990 $112.25 $1564.43 $87.60 $89.82 

2000 $66.19 $1811.62 $40.58 $135.86 

% ∆ -41% 16% -54% 51% 

 Central 1990 $199.26 $1333.89 $90.27 $227.69 

2000 $139.25 $1715.64 $60.96 $325.97 

% ∆ -30% 29% -32% 43% 

 Southern 1990 $88.29 $1367.19 $30.25 $117.85 

2000 $56.21 $1651.20 $14.54 $127.64 

% ∆ -36% 21% -52% 8% 

Appalachia 

 Distressed 2000 $138.01 $1721.75 $62.97 $311.735 

% ∆ -37% 25% -41% 44% 

 Transitional 2000 $56.56 $1740.14 $22.91 $124.604 

% ∆ -34% 19% -53% 20% 

 Competitive 2000 $34.10 $1661.93 $17.23 $76.66 

% ∆ -27% 19% -51% 18% 

 Attainment 2000 $24.45 $1330.27 $11.89 $51.304 

% ∆ -32% 23% -43% 18% 

Appalachia 

 Farming 2000 $75.63 $1545.97 $31.10 $214.46 

% ∆ -39% 27% -56% 9% 

 Mining 2000 $149.30 $1918.23 $79.53 $314.75 

% ∆ -30% 28% -33% 72% 

 Manufacturing 2000 $61.45 $1721.55 $22.31 $144.93 

% ∆ -39% 19% -53% 16% 

 Government 2000 $127.67 $1563.14 $55.15 $282.47 

% ∆ -39% 23% -40% 36% 

 Services 2000 $83.77 $1886.68 $40.09 $184.22 

% ∆ -32% 17% -45% 38% 

 Metro 2000 $52.96 $1673.04 $25.00 $108.85 

% ∆ -34% 19% -52% 31% 

 Nonspecialized 2000 $81.84 $1672.57 $30.79 $191.86 

% ∆ -37% 20% -49% 24% 
22 

Changes in Family Income Inequality 

Income inequality is often an issue of social concern. Income inequality can be thought of 

as a measure of how much more people of one social status earn relative to another. There are 

many ways of measuring income inequality, including well-known indices such as the Gini 

coefficient or the Theil index. However, these indexes are difficult to interpret when one wants 

answers to questions such as: “How much more do rich people earn relative to poor people?” 

An alternative to these indices is to classify families into groups and measure their 

relative earnings directly. We define four groups of families as follows: 

• Families in the 10th percentile of the family income distribution are labeled “poor”; in 

1990, poor families had family income of $14,988. 

• Families in the 25th percentile are labeled “lower middle class”; in 1990, lower middle 

class families had family incomes of $24,511. 

• Families in the 75th percentile are labeled “upper middle class”; in 1990, upper middle 

class families had family incomes of $73,129. 

• Families in the 90th percentile are labeled “rich”; rich families had family incomes of 

$119,597 (all incomes reported in 2000 dollars). 

In principle, the earnings ratio between the rich and the poor or between the upper middle 

class and the lower middle class is easy to calculate. If we knew the level of family earnings for 

every family in the United States, we could simply calculate the level of earnings at each 

percentile and then calculate the relative earnings between groups of differing social status. 

However, for reasons of confidentiality, the Census Bureau has never released micro data with 

geographic information on the place of residence of families that was recorded as finely as the 

county (the state of residence is typically what is recorded). In order to give users an idea of the 

characteristics of counties, including the distribution of family income, the Census Bureau 

instead releases tabulations from each census, recording the number of families in a county 

whose income falls into a limited set of groups (typically, 10 groups). In general, there are many 

interesting groups on which inequality might be calculated—including adult men, families, 

households, etc.—and the distribution of earnings for all of these groups is available in some 

years. However, the only distribution that is available in all years between 1970 and 2000 is 

family income. It is for this reason that we focus on family income. 

The fact that income data is recorded in groups rather than on individual families poses 

special issues for estimating income inequality that are addressed in Appendix D. To our 

knowledge, using family income is the most feasible way of estimating income inequality from 

grouped data. However, we stress that these numbers are estimates and will not necessarily 

match published statistics for the entire United States. While it is feasible to calculate such 
23

statistics directly from micro data, the process of doing so would take special approval from the 

Census Bureau to access their internal files. In fact, these files have only become available 

recently on modern computing equipment. 

 Table 8 calculates two measures of family income inequality—the ratio of the earnings of 

rich families relative to poor families (90th to 10th percentile) and the ratio of upper middle class 

families to lower middle class families (75th to 25th percentile). These statistics are population 

weighted to represent the area that is classified in the table’s first column. What is clear is that 

the gap between the rich and the poor grew in the United States as a whole but grew much less in 

Appalachia between 1990 and 2000. By the year 2000, the rich in the United States earned 8.13 

times what the poor earned, while in Appalachia this ratio was 7.71. There was less growth in 

inequality in both the United States and Appalachia between the lower middle class and the 

upper middle class. When we break Appalachia up into its three sub-regions, an interesting 

pattern emerges. In the central region, family income inequality actually decreased, suggesting 

that the higher growth rate in the central Appalachia economy—as this region converges towards 

the mean of the rest of Appalachia—was also accompanied by reduced family income inequality. 

The southern region of Appalachia saw a rise in family income inequality. 

 The theory that a convergence in average incomes between the rich and poor of an area 

also reduces family income inequality in that area is supported by the relative change in income 

inequality in the areas of differing levels of economic distress. Families in distressed counties in 

Appalachia had a substantial reduction in income inequality, whether measured either as the ratio 

of earnings of the rich to the poor or measured as the ratio of upper middle class earnings to 

lower middle class earnings. Notice that for both measures, as the level of economic 

development increases, the growth in income inequality between 1990 and 2000 also increases. 

In general, Appalachian areas that were in mining had the largest levels of income inequality in 

2000, but they also displayed the largest convergence in income between the rich and the poor 

and between the upper middle class and the lower middle class. Families in metropolitan areas 

experienced growing family income inequality, while those in most other areas experienced 

reductions in income inequality. 
24 

Table 8 

Inequality Statistics for Appalachia Region and the United States Family Income 

(Population Weighted Results)

Year 90th/10th Percentile Ratio 75th/25th Percentile Ratio 

Appalachia 1990 7.67 2.92 

2000 7.71 2.93 

∆ 0.05 0.01 

 

United States 1990 7.98 2.98 

2000 8.13 3.01 

∆ 0.15 0.03 

Appalachia 

 Northern 1990 7.28 2.84 

2000 7.27 2.84 

∆ -0.02 0.00 

 Central 1990 8.52 3.09 

2000 8.00 2.99 

∆ -0.51 -0.10 

 Southern 1990 7.62 2.91 

2000 7.86 2.96 

∆ 0.24 0.05 

Appalachia 

 Distressed 2000 7.90 2.97 

∆ -0.47 -0.09 

 Transitional 2000 7.38 2.86 

∆ 0.06 0.01 

 Competitive 2000 7.58 2.90 

∆ 0.55 0.11 

 Attainment 2000 7.66 2.92 

∆ 0.59 0.12 

Appalachia 

 Farming 2000 6.64 2.71 

∆ -0.19 -0.04 

 Mining 2000 8.03 2.99 

∆ -0.68 -0.13 

 Manufacturing 2000 7.26 2.84 

∆ 0.12 0.02 

 Government 2000 8.21 3.03 

∆ -0.07 -0.01 

 Services 2000 7.87 2.96 

∆ -0.23 -0.05 

 Metro 2000 7.76 2.94 

∆ 0.23 0.05 

 Nonspecialized 2000 7.37 2.86 

∆ -0.01 0.00 

Source: Authors’ calculations. 
25

ANALYSIS OF LONG-TERM TRENDS FOR APPALACHIA 

Issues in Historical Analysis 

The aim of this section is to describe the economic status of Appalachia in historical 

perspective. Using data from the 1970 Decennial Census and the REIS data from the 1970s, we 

ask: “How did the Appalachian economy look in 1970 (in terms of levels of poverty, per capita 

income, and levels of transfer payments), and which other areas of the United States historically 

looked similar?” 

Two particular comparisons of interest will be a historical classification of ERS primary 

economic activity categories and a historical classification of ARC economic levels. These 

comparisons will require establishing the job mix of these regions in 1970 and classifying the 

counties inside and outside of Appalachia into historic ERS categories. We similarly classified 

all counties in the United States into historical ARC economic levels for 1970. The “Analysis of 

Contemporary Appalachia” section of this article describes the construction of the ARC 

economic level and the ERS primary economic activity for counties for 1990 and 2000. To 

construct historic parallels to our contemporaneous measures, we use the same definitions as 

discussed above; but the inputs to these measures are drawn from data surrounding relevant years 

(1970, 1980, 1990, and 2000). Appendix B provides a detailed discussion of the construction of 

these measures. 

When we discuss changes in Appalachia between 1970 and 2000, we will use other 

historically disadvantaged areas as points of comparison. The historic ARC economic level and 

ERS historic primary economic activity of each county will allow us to construct one measure of 

historically disadvantaged. This measure is a statistically constructed match to Appalachia where 

the outcome for each county in the United States contributes to a weighted average. The 

importance of each county in this weighted average depends on how important counties of the 

same ARC and ERS category are within Appalachia. 

While a full description of how we construct a statistical match to Appalachia is relegated 

to Appendix A, we give a brief example here. The basic idea is to classify all counties in 

Appalachia into cells that describe their level of economic distress and their primary economic 

activity in 1970. Table A1 (in the Appendix) shows that counties in Appalachia can be classified 

into one of 19 cells. In 1970, there were distressed and transitional counties in each of the seven 

ERS primary economic activities. But because so few counties in Appalachia were either 

competitive or attainment, there were only four ERS activities in competitive counties, and the 

only attainment counties were metropolitan. In 1970, the most prevalent type of county (25.4 

percent) was a transitional county with manufacturing as its primary economic activity. We then 

calculate the average level of our indicator of interest within these cells for counties outside of 

Appalachia. Table A1, as an example, calculates the average per capita TANF payment for 

counties outside of Appalachia within the 19 ARC-ERS county types found in Appalachia. 
26 

To determine what the average per capita TANF payment would have been outside of 

Appalachia in 1970 if counties outside of Appalachia had the same distribution of ARC-ERS 

types as within Appalachia, we weight the average per capita TANF payment outside of 

Appalachia for each cell by the distribution of cell types within Appalachia. That is, distressed 

farming counties outside of Appalachia had per capita TANF payments of $106.09 in 1970; we 

weight this by 0.076 (the fraction of counties in Appalachia that were distressed farming). 

Distressed mining counties outside of Appalachia had per capita TANF payments of $124.28 in 

1970; we weight this by 0.059 (the fraction of counties in Appalachia that were distressed 

mining) and so forth. The result is that, while counties outside of Appalachia had per capita 

TANF payments in 1970 of $65.80, the remainder of the United States (when weighted by the 

ARC-ERS composition of Appalachia) would have had per capita TANF payments in 1970 of 

$72.10 had the remainder of the U.S. followed the ARC-ERS distribution of county types within 

Appalachia. The careful reader of Table A1 will notice that part of the reason that TANF 

payments outside of Appalachia were actually higher than within Appalachia is that several more 

wealthy county types that have lower TANF payments ($40.04 on average) do not exist in 

Appalachia (e.g., Attainment farming counties). 

Another measure is more ad hoc. We compare Appalachia to areas of the United States 

that are historically impoverished. Figures 10 and 11 (page 36) present the fraction of each 

county (in both the United States and in Appalachia) below the poverty line in 1970. It is clear 

that Appalachia has high rates of poverty; but other areas, including the Mississippi Delta 

Region, Indian Reservation Areas of traditional Indian states, the Rio Grande Region, the Ozark 

Mountain Region, and the East Carolina Region, also had very high rates. As points of 

comparison to Appalachia, we use three areas—the Mississippi Delta Region, the Ozark 

Mountain Region, and the Rio Grande Valley Region. We pick these areas because they had 

similar poverty rates in 1970 to Appalachia and because there is a standardized definition of 

which counties constitute each area (see Appendix C for a list of the counties included in these 

three regions).

Using these comparisons, we describe in detail the 1970 and 2000 levels of poverty, 

median income, labor force participation, unemployment, level of reliance on transfer programs, 

and measures of income inequality in Appalachia and in our four comparison areas. We also 

describe the evolution of the job mix between 1970 and 1990 and the trend from 1990 to 2000 in 

each of these areas. When appropriate, we present our analysis separately by gender, family 

structure, age group, race, and ethnicity. The overall goal is twofold: to establish whether the 

pattern of poverty rates and income inequality measures found for the United States holds for 

Appalachia as well, and to determine the role of the type of local economy on these measures. 
27

Figure 10 

Source: U.S. Census Bureau, 1970 census. 

Figure 11 

Source: U.S. Census Bureau, 1970 census.
28 

Table 9 

Distribution of Primary Economic Activity for Appalachia Region and 

the Remainder of the U.S. (Unweighted Results) 

 

Appalachia (N=410) 

1970 1989 1999 

Change 1970 to 

1989 

Change 1989 to 

1999

Types N % N % N % N % N % 

 

Farming 37 9.02 1 0.24 1 0.24 -36 -97% 0 0% 

Mining 33 8.05 43 10.49 21 5.12 10 30% -22 -51% 

Manufacturing 158 38.54 137 33.41 97 23.66 -21 -13% -40 -29% 

Government 23 5.61 31 7.56 45 10.98 8 35% 14 45% 

Services 12 2.93 26 6.34 34 8.29 14 116% 8 31% 

Nonspecialized 68 16.59 63 15.37 72 17.56 -5 -7% 9 14% 

Metro 79 19.27 109 26.59 140 34.15 30 38% 31 28% 

 

Remainder of U.S. (N=2654) 

 

1970 1989 1999 

Change 1970 to 

1989 

Change 1989 to 

1999

 

Types N % N % N % N % N % 

Farming 825 31.09 388 14.62 239 9.01 -437 -53% -149 -38% 

Mining 84 3.17 113 4.26 80 3.01 29 34% -33 -29% 

Manufacturing 389 14.66 410 15.45 326 12.28 20 5% -84 -21% 

Government 192 7.23 330 12.43 362 13.64 138 72% 32 10% 

Services 165 6.22 304 11.45 305 11.49 139 84% 1 0% 

Nonspecialized 452 17.03 410 15.45 426 16.05 -42 -9% 16 4% 

Metro 547 20.61 699 26.34 916 34.51 153 28% 217 31% 

Source: Authors’ calculations. 

Results 

Changes in Primary Economic Activity 

Table 9 presents the evolution of the Appalachian economy since 1970. Specifically, 

Table 9 presents the fraction of counties in each of the six ERS primary classifications for 1970, 

1989, and 1999 (see Appendix B for a description of constructing historically comparable 

classifications). Between 1970 and 1989, Appalachia became substantially less farming- and 

manufacturing-dependent and substantially more service-dependent, with an increase in the 
29

number of metropolitan counties. This pattern was also seen outside of Appalachia. There are 

some differences in the timing of the changes in county primary activity, however. Farmingdependent counties all but disappeared in Appalachia between 1970 and 1989, while they have 

been declining more steadily in the United States as a whole. Manufacturing seemed to decline 

more in Appalachia than the rest of the country between 1970 and 1989, but the long-term trend 

over the last 30 years has been downward everywhere. Finally, the national trend of a growth in 

the service sector is somewhat more pronounced in Appalachia than elsewhere in the United 

States; but even in 1999, the fraction of counties that were service-dependent remained lower in 

Appalachia than in the United States as a whole. In general, the U.S. economy has diversified; 

and Appalachia, starting with an economy more concentrated in mining and manufacturing in 

1970 than elsewhere, has diversified somewhat more rapidly. Today, except for an almost total 

absence in farming and a somewhat heavier reliance on manufacturing, the Appalachian 

economy is becoming remarkably similar in primary economic activities to rest of the United 

States. 

Changes in Poverty and Income 

Table 10 presents the fraction of the population in poverty as well as average family 

income and average non-family income for Appalachia and the four comparison areas for the 

years 1970, 1980, 1990, and 2000. By any measure, the typical county in Appalachia has become 

substantially richer since 1970. Between 1970 and 2000, the average county poverty rate 

declined by 35 percent, while average family income in a county increased by 37 percent. The 

average income for non-family households increased by 131 percent. Most of the reduction in 

poverty occurred between 1970 and 1980. Poverty actually increased between 1980 and 1990, 

with a decline once again between 1990 and 2000. Average income, however, has shown a 

steady rise for both family and non-family households. 

Turning our attention to the four comparison areas, we see that the changes experienced 

by Appalachia over the last 30 years reflect a more general trend in historically disadvantaged 

areas. In 1970, areas that were statistically similar to Appalachia in primary economic activity 

and level of economic distress had somewhat lower poverty rates and somewhat higher levels of 

household incomes than their Appalachian counterparts. The trend in these areas over the last 30 

years, however, is remarkably similar to that in Appalachia. Likewise, while counties in the 

Mississippi Delta, Ozark Mountains, and Rio Grande Valley had on average higher rates of 

poverty and lower average family income than counties in Appalachia, all three comparison 

areas experienced a decline in the rate of poverty and increases in average family income similar 

to that in Appalachia. If anything stands out in Table 10, it is that the growth in non-family 

income among non-family households has happened more slowly in the Rio Grande Valley 

relative to other historically disadvantaged areas. This may reflect the larger increase in illegal 

aliens in this region over the last 30 years. 

The results in Table 10 (and Table 4 above), however, show a clear pattern. Historically 

poor regions of the United States are getting wealthier, and Appalachian economies’ 

performances do not appear to be substantially better or substantially worse than the 

performances of other similar economies. Many areas that were historically very poor showed a 

marked improvement in the economic welfare of their populations, which is consistent with the 
30 

notion that poorer economies converge to the performance of more successful economies. This 

convergence undoubtedly occurs because technology diffuses through the economy over time, 

but it also occurs because areas that have low growth rates are apt to lose significant portions of 

their populations. 

Table 10 

Labor Market Statistics for Appalachia and Four Comparison Areas: 

1970 – 2000 

 

Fraction of Population in Poverty 

 

Year Appalachia 

Statistical 

Comparison 

Mississippi 

Delta 

Ozark 

Mountain Rio Grande 

 

1970 0.250 0.235 0.345 0.332 0.449 

1980 0.179 0.173 0.241 0.243 0.315 

1990 0.191 0.189 0.262 0.246 0.381 

2000 0.164 0.154 0.211 0.214 0.305 

% ∆ 1970-2000 -34% -34% -39% -36% -32% 

Average Family Income (2000 $’s) 

 

1970 $35,203 $38,724 $32,303 $28,884 $29,596 

1980 $41,854 $44,663 $40,322 $32,867 $38,122 

1990 $42,480 $44,490 $38,978 $33,242 $34,734 

2000 $48,210 $51,088 $45,398 $38,337 $38,663 

% ∆ 1970-2000 37% 32% 41% 33% 31% 

Average Non-Family Income (2000 $’s) 

 

1970 $10,866 $12,877 $10,042 $9,792 $11,668 

1980 $15,740 $17,476 $14,862 $12,264 $16,388 

1990 $19,865 $21,898 $17,856 $15,976 $19,727 

2000 $25,054 $27,100 $23,125 $20,657 $22,376 

% ∆ 1970-2000 131% 110% 130% 111% 92% 

 

Source: Authors’ calculations. 

Changes in Labor Force Status 

Table 11 shows the labor force participation rate for prime-aged men and women 

between 1970 and 2000. Clearly there has been a decline in the labor force participation rate of 

men and an increase in the rate for women over the last 30 years. There is much controversy over 

the decline in the labor force participation rate of prime-aged men (men between the ages of 25 
31

and 55). Bound and Waidmann argue that increasing health has paradoxically allowed some men 

to live but not be healthy enough to work, while historically these men would have died.5

Parsons points to the increasing generosity of the Disability Insurance program as a substitute 

source of support.6

 In any case, the decline in work of prime-aged men appears to be a national 

trend, one from which Appalachia is not exempt. In fact, the decline in the labor force 

participation rate of prime-aged men appears somewhat smaller in Appalachia than in our 

Table 11 

Labor Force Participation for Appalachia and Four Comparison 

Areas: 1970 – 2000 

 

Year Appalachia 

Statistical 

Comparison 

Mississippi 

Delta 

Ozark 

Mountain Rio Grande 

Labor Force Participation of Men 

 

1970 0.687 0.703 0.650 0.622 0.672 

1980 0.689 0.702 0.652 0.625 0.688 

1990 0.674 0.689 0.641 0.638 0.663 

2000 0.642 0.661 0.610 0.623 0.604 

% ∆ 1970-2000 -7% -6% -6% 0.2% -10% 

Labor Force Participation of Women 

 

1970 0.347 0.372 0.336 0.302 0.314 

1980 0.420 0.449 0.403 0.393 0.379 

1990 0.483 0.511 0.468 0.459 0.427 

2000 0.503 0.542 0.497 0.477 0.449 

% ∆ 1970-2000 45% 46% 48% 58% 43% 

 

 Source: Authors’ calculations. 

statistically constructed comparison counties. The 7 percent decline in the labor force 

participation rate of men in Appalachian counties, however, appears very similar to counties in 

the Mississippi Delta and Rio Grande Valley. 

The opposite story is true for the labor force participation rate of prime-aged women. 

Over the last 30 years, women have entered the labor force in unprecedented numbers. Again, 

Appalachia is no exception, with the typical county seeing a 45 percent increase in the labor 

force participation rate of women. 

Changes in Unemployment 

Table 12 presents the unemployment rate for men. (The United States Census Bureau 

provides unemployment data by race and ethnicity in the summary files starting only in 1980, so 

we cannot include these statistics in our long-term analysis.) Overall, after achieving relatively 
32 

low levels in 1970, unemployment rates rose sharply during the recession of 1980. Again, the 

rate in counties in Appalachia was similar to other historically disadvantaged areas with the 

exception of the Rio Grande Valley, where unemployment has grown sharply. 

Table 12 

Unemployment Rates for Appalachia and Four Comparison Areas: 

1970 – 2000 

 

Year Appalachia 

Statistical 

Comparison 

Mississippi 

Delta 

Ozark 

Mountain Rio Grande 

Unemployment Rate of Men 

 

1970 0.048 0.044 0.054 0.048 0.050 

1980 0.088 0.076 0.085 0.082 0.067 

1990 0.080 0.075 0.089 0.075 0.116 

2000 0.064 0.063 0.073 0.060 0.115 

% ∆ 1970-2000 33% 43% 35% 25% 130% 

% ∆ 1980-2000 -27% -17% -14% -27% 72% 

 

 Source: Authors’ calculations. 

Table 13 presents transfer payments—Food Stamps, Disability Insurance payments, 

TANF, and SSI payments. While most programs were available nationally in 1970, the federal 

Food Stamp Program was not available in all areas. For example, no county in the 

Ozark Mountains had implemented the program in 1970. Because of this, the Mississippi Delta 

counties probably serve as the best point of comparison for this program. Both Appalachia and 

the Delta region had growth in per capita receipt of Food Stamp dollars. Appalachia has had both 

a lower level and slower growth in this program since 1970. 

As in the United States as a whole, Appalachia has experienced an enormous increase in 

per capita Disability Insurance payments. The rate of increase is substantially higher than in 

other comparison regions (but most similar to the Mississippi Delta counties). This increase in 

Disability Insurance payments likely stems from two factors: higher rates of disability because of 

the Appalachian job mix, and a population in Appalachia that is older relative to other areas. This 

can also be seen in the relative growth of SSI. This program also supplements the income of 

disabled individuals; however, unlike Disability Insurance, this program is means-tested. While 

the growth in this program was modest or even decreasing in comparison areas, Appalachia 

experienced a 78 percent increase in SSI payments per capita. This is a much sharper growth 

than in other areas, but in some respects it represents a catching up to the levels received in our 
33

comparison areas. Prior to 1974, however, SSI was a collection of state programs rather than a 

single national program. A good portion of the increase, therefore, may be the result of moving 

to a single national payment schedule. Black, Daniel, and Sanders, however, document that 

enrollment in the program is quite sensitive to economic conditions.7

Finally, TANF payments fell substantially in Appalachia, as in other areas of the United 

States. Unlike the other programs discussed here, TANF payments are set at the state rather than 

the federal level. Therefore, changes in TANF payments in Appalachia relative to other areas are 

a function of both the relative use of the program and the relative generosity of the program. 

Table 13 

Transfer Payments for Appalachia and Four Comparison Areas: 

1970 – 2000, Dollars per Capita (2000 dollars) 

 

Year Appalachia 

Statistical 

Comparison 

Mississippi 

Delta Ozark Mountain Rio Grande 

 

Food Stamps 

 

1970 $70.76 $39.75 $91.61 $0.00 $6.70 

2000 $77.34 $67.87 $107.42 $104.61 $171.00 

% ∆ 9% 71% 17% . 2451% 

Disability Insurance 

 

1970 $717.10 $721.45 $702.83 $915.00 $530.31 

2000 $1721.22 $1583.01 $1604.55 $1828.69 $1061.68 

% ∆ 140% 119% 128% 100% 100% 

Temporary Aid to Needy Families 

 

1970 $68.79 $72.44 $69.94 $64.39 $87.16 

2000 $33.72 $41.93 $31.87 $41.80 $84.18 

% ∆ -51% -42% -54% -35% -3.4% 

Supplemental Security Income 

 

1970 $96.77 $113.03 $182.86 $294.77 $173.33 

2000 $172.61 $115.31 $189.97 $165.34 $158.89 

% ∆ 78% 2% 4% -44% -8% 

 

 Source: Authors’ calculations. 
34 

Changes in Income Inequality 

Table 14 presents the same measures of family income inequality for 1970 through 2000 

that were discussed above for 1990 and 2000. First, looking at the relative income of rich versus 

poor families (the 90th and 10th percentiles, respectively), what is clear is that Appalachia 

experienced an extremely large decline in income inequality between 1970 and 1980. Thereafter, 

there were slow rises in family income inequality. This pattern is somewhat different than other 

poor areas of the United States. While the Mississippi Delta, Ozark Mountain Region, and Rio 

Grande Region also experienced a rapid reduction in inequality between 1970 and 1980, these 

areas’ trend downward in income inequality continued through 2000. However, all three regions 

displayed a substantially larger level of income inequality in 1970 than did Appalachia. 

Table 14 

90th to 10th Percentile and 75th to 25th Percentile of Family Income for 

Appalachia and Four Comparison Areas: 1970 – 2000 

(Population Weighted Results)

 

Year Appalachia 

Statistical 

Comparison 

Mississippi 

Delta 

Ozark 

Mountain Rio Grande 

90th/10th Percentile Ratio 

 

1970 8.19 8.25 10.34 9.30 9.65 

1980 7.57 7.92 9.39 7.60 9.13 

1990 7.67 8.00 9.04 6.97 8.93 

2000 7.71 7.95 8.60 6.86 8.22 

% ∆ 1970-2000 -0.47 -0.30 -1.75 -2.44 -1.43 

75th/25th Percentile Ratio 

 

1970 3.02 3.04 3.42 3.23 3.30 

1980 2.90 2.97 3.25 2.91 3.20 

1990 2.92 2.99 3.19 2.78 3.16 

2000 2.93 2.98 3.10 2.76 3.03 

% ∆ 1970-2000 -0.09 -0.06 -0.32 -0.48 -0.27 

 

 Source: Authors’ calculations. 

The statistical comparison area also displayed a large decline in family income inequality 

between 1970 and 1980, although not as steep a decline as found in Appalachia. However, after 

1980, income inequality did not grow in the statistical comparison area. Part of the reason for the 

greater drop in income inequality between 1970 and 1980 in Appalachia relative to the statistical 

comparison area is that the coal boom likely provided many higher-paying jobs for low-skilled 

workers in Appalachia, substantially increasing the earnings of low-skilled workers. As the boom 
35

of the 1970s turned into the bust of the 1980s, it is reasonable that family income inequality 

would expand in Appalachia relative to other historically poor areas. The patterns of inequality 

between rich and poor families are mimicked in the patterns of inequality between upper and 

lower middle-class families. This argument parallels arguments made by Galbraith.8

CONCLUSION 

 We began this report by looking briefly at the economic history of Martin County, 

Kentucky. While Martin County was and is much poorer than the typical Appalachian county, it 

is perhaps a good metaphor for the Appalachian economics experience over the last 30 years. 

The Martin County economy has grown much faster than the national average over the last 30 

years, and its residents are considerably wealthier in 2000 than they were in 1970. Similarly, the 

Appalachian economy has grown much faster than the national average, the residents of 

Appalachia are wealthier, and their poverty rate is lower in 2000 than in 1970. In addition, 

income inequality seems to have expanded much more slowly in Appalachia than the United 

States as a whole between 1990 and 2000. In fact, in the most distressed areas between 1990 and 

2000, it appears that there has been a reduction in income inequality. 

 

Of course, the problems of the Appalachian economy differ greatly across the regions. 

The coal-producing areas have been hard-hit by the decline of the coal industry. Similarly, the 

steel-producing regions have experienced the rapid decline of the United States industry with 

increased international competition, a problem that has beset much of the manufacturing sector 

in this country. Adjustments to these types of shocks require several years and often painful 

reallocation of resources. Coupled with their initial disadvantages, the performance of the 

Appalachian economies during the last 30 years is even more remarkable. This much is quite 

encouraging. 

Yet many problems remain. Median family income in Appalachia remains substantially 

below the United States average. Poverty rates are higher and labor force participation lower in 

Appalachia than in the United States as a whole, and these differences are particularly stark when 

considering the region’s distressed counties. While these areas have progressed greatly in the last 

30 years, their residents remain much poorer than the typical resident of the United States.
36 

Appendix A: Matching and Weighting 

 In this appendix, we outline the nonparametric matching model we use in the text to 

compare counties in Appalachia with similar economic areas. When matching on continuous 

random variables, nonparametric matching requires some type of kernel estimation or other 

method of taking a local average; see Pagan and Ullah for details.9

 

 When the data are discrete, however, the process is much less complicated. Suppose one 

wishes to match on a discrete x , which takes on n different values. 

 We may specify our regression model as: 

11 1 y gx = ( ) +ε , (A1) 

when a county is in Appalachia, and 

00 0 y gx = ( )+ε , (A2) 

when a county is not in Appalachia. The functions 0 g x( ) and 1 g x( ) are unknown regression (or 

conditional mean) functions that are dependent on x , which we wish to estimate. As in standard 

regression analysis, the variables 1 0 (, ) ε ε are mean zero error terms that are assumed to be 

independent of 0 g x( ) and 1 g x( ) , respectively. Thus, 1 1 Ey x g x ( | ) () = and 0 0 Ey x g x ( | ) () = . 

 

While we do not know the form of the regression functions 0 g x( ) and 1 g x( ) , we may 

estimate them using the means of 0 y and 1 y conditional on x as: 

1 1

0 0

( | ) ()

( | ) ()

Ey x g x

Ey x g x

=

= , (A3) 

so we may directly estimate the value. We may calculate the value of the unconditional mean for 

Appalachia as: 

1 1 1|

1 1

(|)( |) (|) i

n n

i i i xx

i i

y Fx AEy x Fx Ay =

= =

= = ∑ ∑ , (A4) 

where ( | ) Fx A i is the fraction of Appalachian counties with i x = x and 1| i x x y = is the mean of 1 y

conditional on i x = x . Similarly, we may calculate the mean of the rest of the United States as: 

0 0 0|

1 1

(| )( |) (|) i

n n

i i i xx

i i

y Fx NEy x Fx Ay =

= =

= = ∑ ∑ , 

where ( | ) Fx N i is the fraction of the non-Appalachian counties in the United States with i x = x . 

The mean 0 y may differ from 1 y either because of differences in the conditional mean functions, 

0 1 gx gx () () ≠ , or because the distributions of 1 x and 2 x differ so that ( | ) ( | ) Fx N Fx A i i ≠ . 
37

Table A1 

Calculation of Statistical Comparison for Non-Appalachia in 1970

Example of Calculating Average TANF Benefits 

 (1) (2) 

 Category Fraction of Counties in Average TANF in 1970 

 

Appalachia in Each Cell in 

1970 

(Ave. in Cell of Counties 

outside Appalachia) 

 

1 Distressed Farming 0.076 $106.09 

2 Distressed Mining 0.059 $124.28 

3 Distressed Manufacturing 0.105 $65.60 

4 Distressed Government 0.027 $110.94 

5 Distressed Service 0.007 $76.85 

6 Distressed Nonspecialized 0.102 $82.13 

7 Distressed Metro 0.015 $76.70 

8 Transitional Farming 0.015 $54.71 

9 Transitional Mining 0.022 $58.87 

10 Transitional Manufacturing 0.254 $55.42 

11 Transitional Government 0.029 $57.50 

12 Transitional Service 0.020 $57.86 

13 Transitional Nonspecialized 0.061 $58.14 

14 Transitional Metro 0.142 $82.46 

15 Competitive Manufacturing 0.027 $27.21 

16 Competitive Service 0.002 $49.57 

17 Competitive Nonspecialized 0.002 $35.13 

18 Competitive Metro 0.034 $43.42 

19 Attainment Metro 0.002 $68.88 

20 No Support 0.000 $40.04 

 

Weighted Average $72.14* 

Unweighted Average (including no-support counties) $65.80 

* This differs from $72.44 in Table 13 because of rounding of the fraction in each cell. 

Thus, we estimate: 

0 0 0 0|

1 1

( |) (|)( | ) (|) i

n n

i i xx

i i

Ey A Fx AEy x Fx Ay =

= =

≡ = ∑ ∑ , 

which adjusts the United States means for differences in the distribution of covariates. 

 

Consider the following example. In column (2) of Table A1, we report the mean of TANF per 

capita payments in 2000 by ARC economic level (distressed, transitional, competitive, and 

attainment) and primary economic activity (farming, mining, manufacturing, government, 

service, nonspecialized, and metropolitan) for the United States as a whole. In column (1) of 

Table A1, we report fraction of counties in Appalachia in each category. To calculate the 

weighted average, we simply multiply column (1) by column (2) and sum the results. 
38 

 An important distinction, however, is which unit of observation one wishes to use. In the 

text, we treat each county as a unit of observation. These estimates answer the question: “How 

did the average county in Appalachia fare relative to the average county in the United States?” 

Because the counties differ in population, however, these estimates will not answer the question: 

“How did the typical resident of Appalachia fare relative to the typical person in the United 

States?” To answer that question, we reproduce Tables 4 through 8 and Tables 10 through 13 in 

the text as Tables A2 through A9 (pages 52-58) using population weights. 
39

Table A2 

Poverty Statistics for Appalachia Region and the United States 

(Population Weighted Results)

 Year 

Fraction of 

Households in 

Poverty 

Fraction of 

Children (0-17) in 

Poverty 

Fraction of 

Families in 

Poverty 

Fraction of 

Population in 

Poverty 

 

Appalachia 1990 0.161 0.202 0.120 0.154 

2000 0.141 0.177 0.102 0.137 

% ∆ -12% -12% -15% -11% 

 

United States 1990 0.127 0.182 0.100 0.132 

2000 0.118 0.166 0.092 0.124 

% ∆ -7% -9% -8% -6% 

Appalachia 

 Northern 1990 0.144 0.192 0.107 0.141 

2000 0.130 0.169 0.091 0.128 

% ∆ -10% -12% -15% -9% 

 Central 1990 0.262 0.328 0.222 0.259 

2000 0.226 0.291 0.181 0.221 

% ∆ -14% -11% -18% -15% 

 Southern 1990 0.157 0.182 0.110 0.144 

2000 0.135 0.162 0.095 0.128 

% ∆ -14% -11% -14% -11% 

Appalachia 

 Distressed 2000 0.234 0.307 0.188 0.231 

% ∆ -14% -13% -19% -16% 

 Transitional 2000 0.138 0.172 0.096 0.133 

% ∆ -12% -10% -14% -10% 

 Competitive 2000 0.108 0.135 0.075 0.104 

% ∆ -8% -3% -4% -2% 

 Attainment 2000 0.078 0.097 0.057 0.079 

% ∆ -7% -1% -3% 0% 

Appalachia 

 Farming 2000 0.193 0.231 0.143 0.183 

% ∆ -27% -21% -30% -25% 

 Mining 2000 0.228 0.296 0.183 0.226 

% ∆ -8% -8% -15% -11% 

 Manufacturing 2000 0.149 0.185 0.107 0.143 

% ∆ -14% -9% -14% -11% 

 Government 2000 0.243 0.285 0.170 0.238 

% ∆ -15% -16% -22% -16% 

 Services 2000 0.160 0.206 0.115 0.157 

% ∆ -12% -12% -19% -13% 

 Metro 2000 0.121 0.151 0.085 0.116 

% ∆ -11% -12% -13% -9% 

 Nonspecialized 2000 0.171 0.214 0.129 0.164 

% ∆ -15% -15% -18% -16% 

 Source: Authors’ calculations.
40 

Table A3 

Median Income for Appalachia Region and the United States 

(Population Weighted Results)

 Year 

Median 

Household 

Income 

Median 

Family 

Income 

Median Non 

Family 

Household 

Income 

Average 

Family 

Household 

Income 

Average Non 

Family 

Household 

Income 

 

Appalachia 1990 35,592 41,570 18,843 48,755 23,626 

2000 36,603 44,580 19,909 55,189 28,365 

% ∆ 3% 7% 6% 13% 20% 

 

United States 1990 45,133 51,143 27,819 60,785 33,418 

2000 44,793 52,874 27,187 67,803 37,324 

% ∆ -1% 3% -2% 12% 12% 

Appalachia 

 Northern 1990 35,886 42,304 19,378 49,564 24,104 

2000 36,021 44,834 19,550 55,099 28,031 

% ∆ 0.4% 6% 1% 11% 16% 

 Central 1990 25,574 30,284 12,606 37,429 17,479 

2000 26,997 33,118 13,618 42,536 21,667 

% ∆ 6% 9% 8% 14% 24% 

 Southern 1990 37,486 43,376 19,396 50,502 24,240 

 2000 39,166 46,590 21,565 57,790 30,073 

% ∆ 4% 7% 11% 14% 24% 

Appalachia 

 Distressed 2000 26,267 32,472 13,250 41,751 21,244 

% ∆ 8% 11% 10% 15% 24% 

 Transitional 2000 35,590 44,095 18,928 54,555 27,398 

% ∆ 1% 7% 3% 13% 18% 

 Competitive 2000 41,774 49,556 23,655 61,170 32,013 

% ∆ 2% 5% 8% 12% 20% 

 Attainment 2000 53,756 60,699 32,890 73,627 42,564 

% ∆ 2% 4% 6% 9% 18% 

Appalachia 

 Farming 2000 29,672 35,158 14,507 44,306 21,616 

% ∆ 16% 13% 37% 19% 29% 

 Mining 2000 26,598 33,901 13,727 43,319 21,228 

% ∆ 2% 8% 0.1% 13% 15% 

 Manufacturing 2000 33,901 40,515 17,592 49,900 25,683 

% ∆ 6% 7% 13% 13% 25% 

 Government 2000 27,415 36,747 14,101 46,436 22,174 

% ∆ 14% 22% 12% 24% 19% 

 Services 2000 33,359 41,054 17,477 51,272 26,697 

% ∆ 6% 10% 3% 15% 20% 

 Metro 2000 39,781 48,247 22,292 59,744 31,023 

% ∆ 1% 5% 5% 12% 20% 

 Nonspecialized 2000 31,605 37,921 16,245 46,751 24,216 

% ∆ 9% 10% 15% 15% 26% 

 Source: Authors’ calculations. 
41

Table A4 

Employment Rates for Appalachia Region and the United States 

(Population Weighted Results)

 Year 

Labor Force 

Participation: 

All Persons 

Men’s Labor 

Force 

Participation

Women’s 

Labor Force 

Participation

Unemployment Rate: 

Male 

Unemployment Rate: 

White Male 

Unemployment Rate: 

Black Male 

Unemployment Rate: 

Hispanic 

 

Appalachia 1990 0.596 0.695 0.507 0.069 0.065 0.129 0.079 

 2000 0.600 0.673 0.532 0.057 0.052 0.118 0.061 

% ∆ 1% -3% 5% -17% -20% -9% -23% 

 

United States 1990 0.644 0.728 0.566 0.064 0.053 0.137 0.098 

2000 0.634 0.669 0.5747 0.057 0.046 0.123 0.083 

% ∆ -1% -8% 2% -11% -13% -10% -15% 

Appalachia 

 Northern 1990 0.578 0.680 0.486 0.079 0.076 0.195 0.120 

2000 0.591 0.703 0.526 0.066 0.062 0.159 0.100 

% ∆ 2% 3% 8% -16% -18% -18% -17% 

 Central 1990 0.515 0.626 0.415 0.107 0.105 0.184 0.061 

2000 0.514 0.580 0.452 0.077 0.076 0.152 0.073 

% ∆ 0% -7% 9% -28% -28% -17% 20% 

 Southern 1990 0.634 0.725 0.552 0.052 0.045 0.111 0.053 

2000 0.626 0.703 0.525 0.046 0.038 0.107 0.053 

% ∆ -1% -3% -5% -12% -16% -4% 0% 

Appalachia 

 Distressed 2000 0.504 0.570 0.443 0.091 0.087 0.156 0.081 

% ∆ 1% -6% 11% -27% -29% -8% 6% 

 Transitional 2000 0.599 0.672 0.532 0.057 0.052 0.123 0.069 

% ∆ 1% -3% 5% -16% -18% -11% -3% 

 Competitive 2000 0.642 0.719 0.571 0.044 0.038 0.101 0.060 

% ∆ -1% -3% 2% -7% -11% 4% 2% 

 Attainment 2000 0.693 0.772 0.618 0.038 0.028 0.094 0.048 

% ∆ -3% -3% -2% -2% -14% 6% 1% 

Appalachia 

 Farming 2000 0.569 0.651 0.491 0.048 0.047 0.113 0.076 

% ∆ 1% -2% 4% -41% -41% -9% 1% 

 Mining 2000 0.490 0.556 0.428 0.093 0.091 0.180 0.090 

% ∆ 1% -9% 15% -23% -23% -22% -8% 

 Manufacturing 2000 0.596 0.670 0.526 0.052 0.049 0.107 0.058 

% ∆ -1% -4% 1% -18% -20% -3% -8% 

 Government 2000 0.547 0.602 0.495 0.096 0.089 0.167 0.065 

% ∆ 4% 0% 8% -8% -12% 28% 105% 

 Services 2000 0.568 0.636 0.505 0.075 0.071 0.174 0.098 

% ∆ 2% -3% 8% -14% -18% 9% -17% 

 Metro 2000 0.622 0.697 0.553 0.052 0.047 0.114 0.058 

% ∆ 1% -2% 5% -16% -19% -12% -29% 

Nonspecialized 2000 0.569 0.639 0.502 0.062 0.059 0.135 0.085 

% ∆ 0% -4% 6% -23% -24% -13% 23% 

Source: Authors’ calculations.
42 

Table A5 

Social Program Expenditures per Capita for Appalachia Region and 

the United States (Population Weighted Results) 

 Year 

Food Stamps Disability 

Insurance TANF 

Supplemental 

Security Income 

(SSI) 

 

Appalachia 1990 $95.47 $1504.90 $62.87 $97.80 

2000 $60.38 $1712.08 $30.44 $131.50 

% ∆ -37% 14% -52% 34% 

 

United States 1990 $79.09 $1312.20 $102.98 $89.70 

2000 $52.61 $1425.36 $64.58 $112.47 

% ∆ -33% 9% -37% 25% 

Appalachia 

 Northern 1990 $94.79 $1671.27 $89.70 $79.11 

2000 $56.42 $1865.86 $41.46 $122.50 

% ∆ -40% 12% -54% 55% 

 Central 1990 $185.00 $1431.96 $88.60 $197.91 

2000 $130.88 $1797.83 $57.41 $296.94 

% ∆ -29% 26% -35% 50% 

 Southern 1990 $75.96 $1338.51 $27.50 $95.71 

 2000 $49.87 $1549.24 $14.52 $106.56 

% ∆ -34% 16% -47% 11% 

Appalachia 

 Distressed 2000 $132.95 $1767.64 $65.59 $297.61 

% ∆ -37% 21% -43% 53%

 Transitional 2000 $55.76 $1781.64 $28.17 $120.46 

% ∆ -36% 13% -53% 34% 

 Competitive 2000 $38.28 $1634.44 $20.36 $83.23 

% ∆ -28% 14% -51% 23% 

 Attainment 2000 $24.46 $1129.55 $12.21 $49.63 

% ∆ -37% 17% -42% 12% 

Appalachia 

 Farming 2000 $75.71 $1525.05 $85.35 $219.28 

% ∆ -45% 25% -66% 5.4% 

 Mining 2000 $133.82 $1933.12 $107.59 $282.27 

% ∆ -29% 23% -38% 74% 

 Manufacturing 2000 $54.58 $1708.45 $49.63 $129.52 

% ∆ -37% 15% -55% 20% 

 Government 2000 $104.21 $1395.35 $82.99 $222.40 

% ∆ -43% 19% -44% 31% 

 Services 2000 $74.95 $1855.25 $77.44 $164.44 

% ∆ -34% 14% -46% 44% 

 Metro 2000 $50.30 $1691.03 $60.05 $104.95 

% ∆ -37% 12% -53% 35% 

 Nonspecialized 2000 $76.92 $1698.76 $32.61 $177.10 

% ∆ -38% 17% -51% 30% 

 Source: Authors’ calculations.
43

Table A6 

Labor Market Statistics for Appalachia and Four Comparison Areas: 

1970 – 2000 (Population Weighted Results)

 

Year Appalachia 

Statistical 

Comparison 

Mississippi 

Delta 

Ozark 

Mountain Rio Grande 

Fraction of Population in Poverty 

 

1970 0.178 0.232 0.290 0.314 0.362 

1980 0.141 0.172 0.213 0.233 0.290 

1990 0.154 0.186 0.233 0.247 0.355 

2000 0.137 0.150 0.192 0.206 0.308 

% ∆ 1970-2000 -23% -35% -34% -34% -15% 

Average Family Income (2000 $’s) 

 

1970 $41,739 $38,487 $38,053 $30,667 $36,418 

1980 $47,126 $44,273 $45,519 $33,612 $41,124 

1990 $48,755 $44,156 $45,098 $33,785 $38,681 

2000 $55,189 $50,718 $52,239 $39,012 $42,516 

% ∆ 1970-2000 32% 32% 37% 27% 17% 

Average Non-Family Income (2000 $’s) 

 

1970 $13,318 $12,990 $12,393 $10,104 $13,879 

1980 $17,651 $17,547 $17,689 $12,161 $17,999 

1990 $23,626 $21,886 $22,471 $16,163 $24,946 

2000 $28,365 $26,906 $26,809 $21,000 $27,552 

% ∆ 1970-2000 113% 107% 116% 108% 99% 

 

 Source: Authors’ calculations. 
44 

Table A7 

Labor Force Participation for Appalachia and Four Comparison 

Areas: 1970 – 2000 (Population Weighted Results) 

 

Year Appalachia 

Statistical 

Comparison 

Mississippi 

Delta 

Ozark 

Mountain Rio Grande 

Labor Force Participation of Men 

 

1970 0.718 0.706 0.680 0.627 0.649 

1980 0.711 0.705 0.686 0.636 0.683 

1990 0.695 0.692 0.671 0.649 0.667 

2000 0.673 0.664 0.647 0.632 0.620 

% ∆ 1970-2000 -13% -18% -12% -14% -11% 

Labor Force Participation of Women 

 

1970 0.365 0.370 0.369 0.310 0.350 

1980 0.439 0.444 0.446 0.397 0.434 

1990 0.507 0.509 0.511 0.465 0.467 

2000 0.532 0.541 0.535 0.488 0.452 

% ∆ 1970-2000 35% 23% 32% 36% 53% 

 

 Source: Authors’ calculations. 

Table A8 

Unemployment Rates for Appalachia and Four Comparison Areas: 

1970 – 2000 (Population Weighted Results)

 

Year Appalachia 

Statistical 

Comparison 

Mississippi 

Delta 

Ozark 

Mountain Rio Grande 

Unemployment Rate of Men 

 

1970 0.040 0.044 0.048 0.051 0.053 

1980 0.079 0.075 0.070 0.081 0.080 

1990 0.069 0.074 0.082 0.073 0.124 

2000 0.057 0.061 0.069 0.060 0.107 

% ∆ 1970-2000 43% 39% 44% 18% 102% 

% ∆ 1980-2000 -28% -19% -1% -26% 34% 

 

 Source: Authors’ calculations. 
45

Table A9 

Transfer Payments for Appalachia and Four Comparison Areas: 

1970 – 2000, Dollars per Capita (2000 dollars, Population Weighted 

Results) 

 

 

Year Appalachia 

Statistical 

Comparison 

Mississippi 

Delta Ozark Mountain Rio Grande 

Food Stamps 

 

1970 $43.46 $38.11 $85.98 $0.00 $17.82 

2000 $60.38 $65.00 $102.59 $100.19 $176.25 

% ∆ 39% 71% 19% . 889% 

Disability Insurance 

 

1970 $757.04 $734.70 $629.38 $930.07 $437.80 

2000 $1712.08 $1631.86 $1455.66 $1829.17 $801.26 

% ∆ 126% 122% 131% 97% 83% 

Temporary Aid to Needy Families 

 

1970 $74.96 $71.29 $70.31 $62.34 $66.41 

2000 $30.44 $39.13 $34.07 $41.84 $71.17 

% ∆ -59% -45% -52% -33% 7% 

Supplemental Security Income 

 

1970 $66.76 $112.90 $141.91 $275.93 $87.84 

2000 $131.50 $109.94 $171.63 $161.71 $146.23 

% ∆ 97% -3% 21% -41% 66% 

 

 Source: Authors’ calculations. 
46 

Appendix B: Historical Classifications 

 The sections “Analysis of Contemporary Appalachia” and “Analysis of Long-term 

Trends for Appalachia” present statistics for Appalachia by ERS primary economic activity. 

Starting in 1979, ERS constructed and released to the research community a typology that 

classified counties into primary economic activity. Currently, ERS has released a typology for 

1979 and 1989 and is engaged in constructing a typology for 1999. The typology uses data from 

the decennial census to define whether a county is a metro or non-metro county and data from 

the Bureau of Economic Analysis (the Local Area Income Series) to define primary economic 

activity in non-metro areas. Several changes make the 1979 and 1989 typology non-comparable, 

and no typology since 1989 has been released. ARC has its classification of county level of 

economic distress since at least 1988. Again, several changes make the ARC designations noncomparable across time. In addition, to our knowledge, classification now exists for Appalachia 

prior to 1988; counties outside of Appalachia have never been classified into ARC 

classifications. 

The “Analysis of Contemporary Appalachia” section of this paper uses the typology 

developed by ERS for 1989. It uses a constructed ARC typology for 1990 that follows the 

classification ARC has had in place since 1997, but uses different Census unemployment 

numbers rather than the BLS series. The “Analysis of Long-term Trends for Appalachia” section 

is concerned with the historical evolution of Appalachia relative to other areas in the United 

States. Because of this need for historical context, we construct a new set of ERS codes 

(following the 1989 typology) and ARC codes (following a new typology) that is closer to 

consistent across time. This appendix documents the differences in our classifications and ERS’s 

classification for 1989 and the ARC’s classification for 2002. For the ERS codes, this appendix 

documents the choices we made in constructing our measure of primary economic activity, 

including: 

• Our choice of a time-consistent classification schema; 

• Our choice of a time-consistent version of the BEA data; and 

• Our choice of definitions for metro areas. 

For the ARC codes, this appendix documents our choices, including: 

• Our choice of a time-consistent definition of Appalachia; 

• Our choice of a time-consistent definition of “Distressed,” “Transitional,” “Competitive,” 

and “Attainment”; 

• Our choice of a time-consistent version of the BEA data; and 

• Our choice of Census, rather than BLS, local unemployment statistics. 

Below is a description of our choices. Table B1 is a succinct description of the 

construction of ARC and ERC categories for historical comparability. 

 

Time-consistent Classification Schema for ERS Primary Economic Areas 

The ERS revised the coding schema for 1989, making several improvements to previous 

work. Perhaps most important was the establishment of mutually exclusive economic types, 

which makes the typology more useful for statistical analysis. Five types were retained from the 

1979 typology, but a sixth type on service-dependent counties was added to account for the 
47

growth of service jobs in the national economy. A second improvement was the use of multi-year 

measures to define economic types. 

Since we viewed the ERS work in 1989 as a major improvement on earlier work, we 

adopted the 1989 codification for all years. Specifically, economic types were defined as 

follows: 

• Farming-dependent – Farming contributed 20 percent or more of total labor and 

proprietor income over three years; 

• Mining-dependent – Mining contributed 15 percent or more of total labor and 

proprietor income over three years; 

• Manufacturing-dependent – Manufacturing contributed 30 percent or more of 

total labor and proprietor income over three years; 

• Government-dependent – Government activities (federal, state, and local) 

contributed 25 percent or more of total labor and proprietor income over three 

years; 

• Service-dependent – Service activities (private and personal service, agricultural 

services, wholesale and retail trade, finance and insurance, transportation and 

public utilities) contributed 50 percent or more of total labor and proprietor 

income over three years; and 

• Nonspecialized – Not classified as a specialized economy over three years. 

For our 1970 classification, we used 1969 through 1971 BEA data (1968 is not available); 

for our 1989 classification, we used 1987 through 1989 data (as did ERS); and for 1999, we used 

1997 through 1999 data. We also followed the ERS choices of how to classify counties that met 

more than one of the criteria above. Counties that qualify as farming, mining, or manufacturing 

and that also qualify as government or service were classified as farming, mining, or 

manufacturing. Other overlaps (farming-mining, government-service, etc.) were assigned to the 

type with the largest percentage point difference above the cutoff point divided by the standard 

deviation. 

Time-consistent Version of the BEA Data 

There are at least two reasons that our classification for 1989 will differ from ERS’s, even 

though the same codification schema was used in both. First, BEA furnished ERS with 

unsuppressed data for all but five of 50 states. Since this data is not publicly available, we had to 

construct our classifications based on data with more suppression. Typically, data is suppressed 

when the level of economic activity belongs to a handful of firms (which typically means that the 

level of activity is small). But it is possible that a county with one large plant would be 

suppressed even though that plant was responsible for a large fraction of economic activity. 

In general, the effect of this suppression is to make more counties appear as nonspecialized in 

our classification. 

A more important issue is that BEA county income estimates used to create the 1989 ERS county 

codes differ substantially from estimates reported in later revisions. The differences stem from a 
48 

comprehensive revision of state and local area estimates of 1969-91 personal income, which 

reflects major changes in the BEA accounting procedures for the farm income estimates. These 

changes include (1) eliminating CCC payments from farm earnings, (2) using a lower estimate of 

the rental value of farm dwellings, (3) dropping wages paid by the farm operator to him/herself 

from farm proprietors' income, and (4) excluding defaults on loans as income gains 

 

Table B1 

Panel A: ARC County Economic Indicators 

Measures

Three–Year 

Average 

Unemployment 

Rate 

(BLS)

Per Capita 

Market Income 

(REIS)

Poverty Rate 

(Census)

Contemporaneous 

Definition 

(ARC 2003 FY)

 

1998–2000 1999 1990 

Historical Definition 1969–1971 1970 1970 

 

Panel B: ERS County Primary Activity 

Measures

Earnings by 

Industry 

(REIS) 

Employment 

(REIS)

Metro or NonMetro 

(Census)

Contemporaneous 

Definition 

(ERS 2000)

 

2000 2000 2000 

Historical Definition 1970 1970 1970 

 Source: Authors’ calculations 

to farm operators. Estimates for all industries are affected, although the effect on the farm 

industry is most pronounced. For example, the number of counties qualifying as farmingdependent would drop by more than 100 if the later data releases were to be used.10

We have chosen to use the most recent release of the BEA data that allows consistent 

estimates of local area estimates of personal income for 1969 through 2000. The major effect (as 
49

suggested by ERS) is that the number of farming-dependent counties is lower in our 

classification and becomes redistributed to other categories (especially nonspecialized counties). 

Definitions for Metro Areas 

The definition of metro areas is derived from data collected by the decennial censuses. 

About three years after each census, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) releases a list 

of metropolitan (metro) and nonmetropolitan (nonmetro) areas. While the definitions have 

changed over time, these definitions were largely consistent for the 1970, 1980, and 1990 

censuses. 

In 2003, OMB released metro and nonmetro areas from the 2000 Census. The ERS 

website at www.ers.usda.gov/Briefing/Rurality/Newdefinitions/ succinctly describes these 

changes as follows: 

Metro areas were previously defined to include central counties with one or more 

cities of at least 50,000 residents or with an urbanized area of 50,000 or more and 

total area population of at least 100,000. Outlying counties were included if they 

were both economically tied to the central counties, as measured by daily 

commuting, and they displayed a level of 

“metropolitan character” based on population density, urbanization, and 

population growth. A county with high “metropolitan character” would be 

included with as little as 15 percent of its workers commuting. A county low in 

such attributes would be regarded as nonmetro no matter how high the commuting 

linkage was to the central county or counties. 

Under the new “core-based statistical area” system, metro areas are defined for all 

urbanized areas regardless of total area population. In addition, inclusion as an 

outlying county is based on a single commuting threshold of 25 percent with no 

“metropolitan character” requirement. Streamlining the criteria in this manner 

decreases the population covered by metro areas by approximately 2 million 

residents, but actual expansion of metro territory during the last decade added 8 

million persons. The net effect reduces the 2000 nonmetro population from 55 to 

49 million persons. 

The addition of 49 new metro areas mostly results from actual growth during the 

decade of nonmetro cities past the 50,000 urbanized area threshold. The addition 

of formerly nonmetro counties to the fringe of existing metro areas (298 counties) 

comes partly from relentless suburbanization and partly from rule changes, 

specifically the removal of the "metropolitan character" requirement. The 

reclassification of 45 metro counties to nonmetro status is almost entirely a result 

of rule changes, particularly the increase in the commuting level required for 

inclusion as an outlying metro county. All but 4 [sic] of these new nonmetro 

counties became part of a micropolitan area. 

Because there is no existing list of metro areas that uses the 1993 definitions on 

the 2000 Census data, our options are to use the 2003 definitions as released by OMB or 

to use the 1993 definitions of metro areas. While the change between 1993 and 2003 
50 

reflects both increases in the suburbanization of the United States as well as definitional 

differences, we believe that a large part of the change is suburbanization. There is no 

doubt that using the 2003 definition overstates the rate of urbanization between 1990 and 

2000. But using the 1993 definition would miss the obvious suburbanization over the 

decade. 

Table B2 presents our classification and the original ERS classification of the 

3,063 counties for which ERS and we were able to construct classifications for 1989 

(3,073 ERS classified counties in the mainland United States minus 10 counties that had 

merged or split since 1970). Of the 3,063 counties, 2,562 (84 percent) are classified 

identically, even with the changes in data. The largest overall change is that the original 

ERS classification placed 568 counties as farming-dependent. The updated BEA data 

places only 389 counties as farming-dependent. The farming-dependent counties that are 

reclassified overwhelmingly are assigned to government-dependent or nonspecialized 

categories. The only other obvious pattern is that some counties classified as 

nonspecialized by ERS are reassigned to government in our constructed classification. 

Table B2 

A Comparison of Constructed ERS Primary Economic Activities and 

Original ERS Primary Economic Activities

Using Census Rather than BLS Local Unemployment Statistics 

Classification Schema for ARC County Economic Level 

The counties included in Appalachia have changed over time. Currently, there are 410 

counties in Appalachia. Counties have been added to Appalachia over the past 15 years, with a 

number being added by amendment as of Jan 1, 1994. Statistics on “Appalachia” would change 

over time simply because the counties included in “Appalachia” have changed. In order to 

enforce a time-consistent definition of Appalachia, we define Appalachia according to the 

current definition, including the 410 counties now in Appalachia and excluding all others. We 

then construct our ARC typology for these 410 counties in 1970, 1990, and 2000. 

Constructed ERS County Typology Types 

ERS County 

Typology 

Types 

Farming Mining Manufacturing 

Government Services Nonspec 

-ialized 

Metro Total 

Farming 359 7 11 70 48 73 0 568 

Mining 1 132 1 1 0 11 0 146 

Manufacturing 

1 0 497 4 0 4 0 506 

Government 

6 3 1 206 17 2 0 235 

Services 5 2 1 15 59 59 0 319 

Nonspecialized 

17 12 36 65 28 324 0 482 

Metro 0 0 0 0 0 0 809 807 

Total 389 156 547 361 331 473 809 3,066 
51

A Time-consistent Definition of “Distressed,” “Transitional,” “Competitive,” and “Attainment” 

While ARC has produced a list of counties by economic levels since 1988, the definition 

of what qualified a county for each category has evolved over time. Table 1 (page 10) describes 

the current definitions. However, prior to 1997, an “Attainment” county was defined as having 

75 percent of the U.S. three-year average unemployment rate, 80 percent of the U.S. PCMI, and 

75 percent of the nation’s poverty rate. In order to make our definitions historically comparable, 

we use the current definitions and apply these to data for 1990 and 1970. 

Perhaps the biggest difference between our ARC classification and the original one is the 

use of Census local unemployment statistics rather than those of BLS. The first reason we do this 

is that BLS local unemployment statistics are not available prior to 1990. Since the 

unemployment rate is a vital component to the ARC classification scheme and since the BLS 

data is not available around 1970, we have little option but to use a series on local unemployment 

that is available for this time period. There is, however, an additional reason to prefer censusbased estimates of local unemployment. In general, the BLS uses the Current Population Surveys 

to estimate unemployment rates for the United States. The CPS is a national probability sample 

and can be used to directly estimate unemployment in the United States and for some states. But 

for other states and almost all substate regions, the BLS must rely on the “Handbook” method to 

construct these local series. This method is an effort to estimate unemployment for an area using 

available information without the expense of expanding a labor force survey like the CPS. The 

primary data source for this method is establishment employment data from the Quarterly Report 

of Covered Employment and Wages (ES-202 Report). In this data, employment is recorded by 

place of work, and BLS has developed extensive adjustments to convert this to place of residence 

estimates. In addition to these adjustments, the ES-202 data does not contain employment in 

uncovered sectors. While this method is error-prone for small areas, there is little choice for 

unemployment statistics on an annual or monthly basis. 

By contrast, the decennial census is a household-based survey that is collected on every 

household in the United States. Because of this comprehensiveness, using the census to estimate 

unemployment by place of residence for small areas is a straightforward exercise of tabulating 

individual respondents’ employment status on the census by their county of residence. Large 

samples and nearly complete coverage are likely to make the decennial census data more 

accurate for small areas than the BLS unemployment rate series. In general, the downside of 

census estimates is that they are limited to the time period when the census is collected—March 

at the turn of each decade. However, for the purpose of classifying counties in 1970, 1990, and 

2000, this data serves us well. 

Time-consistent Version of the BEA Data 

Finally, the BEA data is updated each year. We use the 2002 REIS data for all years. 

Discussion of Various Definitions 

Our classification differs from ARC’s in three important ways. Take the 2002 ARC 

classification as an example. First, our unemployment statistics reflect unemployment as of the 

year 2000, rather than unemployment between the years 1997 and 1999. Second, our 

unemployment statistics reflect a one-month unemployment rate, rather than a three-year average 

rate. The three-year average has been used to reflect more “structural” unemployment. How 

much difference this makes is an empirical issue. Finally, we use the REIS data available as of 
52 

2002, which could be slightly different from the time period used when ARC constructed the 

series. 

 Table B3 shows the effect of each decision. Panel A simply demonstrates that we were 

able to exactly replicate ARC’s classification using their data. This was done to ensure the 

integrity of the programming and to make sure classifications were implemented correctly. Panel 

B replicates Panel A with one change—the local area unemployment rate for 2000 was used to 

construct the categories rather than the three-year average. What is clear is that both the 

movement to a one-year rather than three-year average and the movement in time periods affect 

the classification very little. Of the 122 distressed counties, 116 remain distressed in the new 

classification, with six now classified as transitional. Of the 260 counties classified as 

transitional, 251 remain classified as transitional, with six counties now classified as distressed 

and three counties classified as competitive. 

Panel C replicates Panel B but again with one substantive change—the census measure of 

unemployment as of March 2000 was used rather than the BLS unemployment series for 2000. 

This has more of an effect on the classification. Of the 122 counties classified by the ARC-2002 

list as distressed, 64 are now classified as distressed, but 58 are classified as transitional. In 

general, local unemployment rates appear higher in the census than in the BLS data (5.7 percent 

vs. 4.6 percent), while the standard deviation of the unemployment statistics are smaller in the 

census than the BLS (2.1 vs. 2.3). The difference between the two classification schemes is 

almost certainly caused by the lower variability of the census unemployment statistics relative to 

the BLS local unemployment statistics. A final note is that in 1970 and 1990, the Census Public 

Use tapes that we had available round the fraction of the population in poverty to the closest 

percentage point. Panel C also uses the current version of the REIS Public Use Data, rather than 

ARC’s version (used in Panel B). This change has very little effect on the classification. 

In the “Analysis of Contemporary Appalachia” section of the paper, we present statistics 

by ARC subgroup for 1990. This classification is based on our new definition that uses the 1990 

Census unemployment statistics rather than the 1987 through 1989 BLS average. While it is 

possible by using the BLS data to create a series for 1990 that is more comparable to ARC’s 

2002 classification, this series would introduce yet another classification and add to the 

confusion surrounding which classification to use.
53

Table B3 

A Comparison of Constructed ARC Primary Economic Activities and 

Original ARC Primary Economic Activities

Panel A: Replication using ARC Data 

 Constructed (BLS) ARC Economic Status

arc_2002 Distressed Transition Competitive Attainment Total 

Distressed 122 0 0 0 122 

Transition 0 258 0 0 258 

Competitive 0 0 18 0 18 

Attainment 0 0 0 12 12 

Total 122 258 18 12 410 

Panel B: Replication Substituting BLS 2000 Unemployment Statistics for the BLS 

1997-1999 Three-year Average Unemployment Statistics 

 Constructed (2000) ARC Economic Status 

arc_2002 Distressed Transition Competitive Attainment Total 

Distressed 116 6 0 0 122 

Transition 6 251 1 0 258 

Competitive 0 3 15 0 18 

Attainment 0 0 0 12 12 

Total 122 260 16 12 410 

Panel C: Replication Substituting Census March 2000 Unemployment Statistics 

for the BLS 1997-1999 Three-year Average Unemployment Statistics and 

substituting the Public Use REIS Per Capita Market Income for ARC’s Series

 Constructed (Census REIS Public Data) 

ARC Economic Status 

arc_2002 Distressed Transition Competitive Attainment Total 

Distressed 64 58 0 0 122 

Transition 2 242 14 0 258 

Competitive 0 2 14 0 18 

Attainment 0 2 1 9 12 

Total 66 306 29 9 410 
54 

Appendix C: Listing of Counties by Region 

Ozark Mountain Counties Rio Grand Valley Counties

 

FIPS County State FIPS County State 

29067 Douglas MO 48043 Brewster TX 

29091 Howell MO 48061 Cameron TX 

29149 Oregon MO 48127 Dimmit TX 

29153 Ozark MO 48131 Duval TX 

29203 Shannon MO 48141 El Paso TX 

29215 Texas MO 48215 Hidalgo TX 

29229 Wright MO 48229 Hudspeth TX 

 48243 Jeff Davis TX 

 48247 Jim Hogg TX 

 48275 Knox TX 

 48283 LaSalle TX 

 48377 Presidio TX 

 48427 Starr TX 

 48479 Webb TX 

 48489 Willacy TX 

 48505 Zapata TX 

Mississippi Delta Counties 

 

FIPS County State FIPS County State

1005 Barbour AL 22001 Acadia LA 

1011 Bullock AL 22003 Allen LA 

1013 Butler AL 22005 Ascension LA 

1023 Choctaw AL 22007 Assumption LA 

1025 Clarke AL 22009 Avoyelles LA 

1035 Conecuh AL 22021 Caldwell LA 

1047 Dallas AL 22025 Catahoula LA 

1053 Escambia AL 22029 Concordia LA 

1063 Greene AL 22033 East Baton Rouge LA 

1065 Hale AL 22035 East Carroll LA 

1085 Lowndes AL 22037 East Feliciana LA 

1087 Macon AL 22039 Evangeline LA 

1091 Marengo AL 22041 Franklin LA 

1099 Monroe AL 22043 Grant LA 

1105 Perry AL 22045 Iberia LA 

1107 Pickens AL 22047 Iberville LA 

1113 Russell AL 22049 Jackson LA 

1119 Sumter AL 22051 Jefferson LA 

1129 Washington AL 22057 Lafourche LA 

1131 Wilcox AL 22059 LaSalle LA 

 
55

Mississippi Delta Counties (cont’d) 

5003 Ashley AR 22063 Livingston LA 

5005 Baxter AR 22065 Madison LA 

5011 Bradley AR 22067 Morehouse LA 

5013 Calhoun AR 22069 Natchitoches LA 

5017 Chicot AR 22071 Orleans LA 

5021 Clay AR 22073 Ouachita LA 

5025 Cleveland AR 22075 Plaquemines LA 

5031 Craighead AR 22077 Pointe Coupee LA 

5035 Crittenden AR 22079 Rapides LA 

5037 Cross AR 22083 Richland LA 

5039 Dallas AR 22087 St. Bernard LA 

5041 Desha AR 22089 St. Charles LA 

5043 Drew AR 22091 St. Helena LA 

5049 Fulton AR 22093 St. James LA 

5053 Grant AR 22095 St. John the Baptist LA 

5055 Greene AR 22097 St. Landry LA 

5063 Independence AR 22099 St. Martin LA 

5065 Izard AR 22105 Tangipahoa LA 

5067 Jackson AR 22107 Tensas LA 

5069 Jefferson AR 22111 Union LA 

5075 Lawrence AR 22117 Washington LA 

5077 Lee AR 22121 West Baton Rouge LA 

5079 Lincoln AR 22123 West Carroll LA 

5085 Lonoke AR 22125 West Feliciana LA 

5089 Marion AR 22127 Winn LA 

5093 Mississippi AR 28001 Adams MS 

5095 Monroe AR 28005 Amite MS 

5103 Ouachita AR 28007 Attala MS 

5107 Phillips AR 28009 Benton MS 

5111 Poinsett AR 28011 Bolivar MS 

5117 Prairie AR 28015 Carroll MS 

5119 Pulaski AR 28021 Claiborne MS 

5121 Randolph AR 28027 Coahoma MS 

5123 St. Francis AR 28029 Copiah MS 

5129 Searcy AR 28031 Covington MS 

5135 Sharp AR 28033 DeSoto MS 

5137 Stone AR 28037 Franklin MS 

5139 Union AR 28043 Grenada MS 

5141 Van Buren AR 28049 Hinds MS 

5145 White AR 28051 Holmes MS 

5147 Woodruff AR 28053 Humphreys MS 

17003 Alexander IL 28055 Issaquena MS 

17055 Franklin IL 28063 Jefferson MS 

17059 Gallatin IL 28065 Jefferson Davis MS 

17065 Hamilton IL 28071 Lafayette MS 

17069 Hardin IL 28077 Lawrence MS 

17077 Jackson IL 28083 Leflore MS 

17087 Johnson IL 28085 Lincoln MS 

17127 Massac IL 28089 Madison MS 
56 

Mississippi Delta Counties (cont’d) 

17145 Perry IL 28091 Marion MS 

17151 Pope IL 28093 Marshall MS 

17153 Pulaski IL 28097 Montgomery MS 

17157 Randolph IL 28107 Panola MS 

17165 Saline IL 28113 Pike MS 

17181 Union IL 28119 Quitman MS 

17193 White IL 28121 Rankin MS 

17199 Williamson IL 28125 Sharkey MS 

21007 Ballard KY 28127 Simpson MS 

21033 Caldwell KY 28133 Sunflower MS 

21035 Calloway KY 28135 Tallahatchie MS 

21039 Carlisle KY 28137 Tate MS 

21047 Christian KY 28139 Tippah MS 

21055 Crittenden KY 28143 Tunica MS 

21075 Fulton KY 28145 Union MS 

21083 Graves KY 28147 Walthall MS 

21101 Henderson KY 28149 Warren MS 

21105 Hickman KY 28151 Washington MS 

21107 Hopkins KY 28157 Wilkinson MS 

21139 Livingston KY 28161 Yalobusha MS 

21143 Lyon KY 28163 Yazoo MS 

21145 McCracken KY 29017 Bollinger MO 

21149 McLean KY 29023 Butler MO 

21157 Marshall KY 29031 Cape Girardeau MO 

21177 Muhlenberg KY 29035 Carter MO 

21219 Todd KY 29055 Crawford MO 

21221 Trigg KY 29065 Dent MO 

21225 Union KY 29067 Douglas MO 

21233 Webster KY 29069 Dunklin MO 

47005 Benton TN 29091 Howell MO 

47017 Carroll TN 29093 Iron MO 

47023 Chester TN 29123 Madison MO 

47033 Crockett TN 29133 Mississippi MO 

47039 Decatur TN 29143 New Madrid MO 

47045 Dyer TN 29149 Oregon MO 

47047 Fayette TN 29153 Ozark MO 

47053 Gibson TN 29155 Pemiscot MO 

47069 Hardeman TN 29157 Perry MO 

47071 Hardin TN 29161 Phelps MO 

47075 Haywood TN 29179 Reynolds MO 

47077 Henderson TN 29181 Ripley MO 

47079 Henry TN 29186 Ste. Genevieve MO 

47095 Lake TN 29187 St. Francois MO 

47097 Lauderdale TN 29201 Scott MO 

47109 McNairy TN 29203 Shannon MO 

47113 Madison TN 29207 Stoddard MO 

47131 Obion TN 29215 Texas MO 

47157 Shelby TN 29221 Washington MO 

47167 Tipton TN 29223 Wayne MO 

47183 Weakley TN 29229 Wright MO 
57

Appendix D: 

Calculating the 90-10 Family Earnings Statistics from Grouped Data 

 Unfortunately, we do not have microeconomic data for income. Instead, we have only 

categorical data. Thus, we know the number of families in each county with income between, 

say, $10,000 and $12,500. More formally, there are n + 1 values, denoted 012 { , , ,..., }n ccc c , that 

define n categories of income. To be able to estimate the distribution of income, we assume that 

income, y , is log-normally distributed. 

 To see why this assumption allows us to estimate the model as if we had microeconomic 

data, suppose that we did in fact have microeconomic data on the categories. We may then 

construct a likelihood function for income distribution, or 

 ( ) , ,1

1

( , ) (ln( ), , ) (ln( ), , ) j j

N

jk jk

j

L Fc Fc ms ms ms -

=

= - Õ , (D1) 

where F( )× is the cumulative normal distribution function, N is the number of families, 1 (, ) j j k k c c -

are the two values that define the income category for the jth observation, and (, ) m s are 

parameters to be estimated. 

 Taking the logarithm of the likelihood function we obtain 

 ( ) , ,1

1

( , ) ln (ln( ), , ) (ln( ), , ) j j

N

jk jk

j

ms ms ms Fc Fc -

=

l = - å (D2) 

This in turn can be simplified to 

 ( ) 1

1

( , ) ln (ln( ), , ) (ln( ), , )

n

ii i

i

ms ms ms n Fc Fc -

=

l = - å , (D3) 

where ni is the number of people in the ith income category and 1 (, ) i i c c - are the cutoffs that 

define the ith income category. 

 Once estimates of (, ) m s are obtained, it is quite easy to calculate any quantiles of the 

distribution because (, ) m s are sufficient statistics for the log normal distribution. Moreover, 

because we use no covariates in our analysis, there is no loss of information from having only 

counts of the number of families in each category, rather than having each of the categories for 

each of the N families. 
58 

References 

 

1

 See the following for a review of regional booms and slumps through the 1980s: Oliver J. Blanchard and Lawrence 

F. Katz, “Regional Evolutions,” Brookings Papers in Economic Activity 1 (1992): 1-75. For a specific look at a 

region of Appalachia, see the following: Dan A. Black, Terra McKinnish, and Seth G. Sanders, “The Economic 

Impact of the Coal Boom and Bust,” Economic Journal, forthcoming. 

2

 Roderick J.A. Little and Donald B. Rubin, Statistical Analysis with Missing Data (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 

Inc., 1987). 

3

 Lawrence E. Wood and Gregory A. Bischak, “Progress and Challenges in Reducing Economic Distress in 

Appalachia: An Analysis of National and Regional Trends Since 1960,” ARC Research Paper (Washington, D.C.: 

Appalachian Regional Commission, January 2000). 

4

 Social Security Administration, Social Security Bulletin, Annual Statistical Supplement (Washington, D.C.: 

Government Printing Office, 2000): Table 9.G.2. 

5

 John Bound and Timothy Waidmann, “Disability Transfers, Self-Reported Health, and the Labor Force 

Attachment of Older Men: Evidence from the Historical Record,” Quarterly Journal of Economics 107, no. 4 

(1992): 1393-1419. 

6

 Donald O. Parsons, “The Decline of Male Labor Force Participation,” Journal of Political Economy 88, no. 1 

(1980): 117-134; and Donald O. Parsons, “Disability Insurance and Male Labor Force Participation,” Journal of 

Political Economy 92, no. 3 (1984): 542-49. 

7

 Dan A. Black, Kermit Daniel, and Seth G. Sanders, “The Impact of Economic Conditions on Participation in 

Disability Programs: Evidence from the Coal Boom and Bust,” The American Economic Review 92, no. 1 (March 

2002): 27-50. 

8

 James K. Galbraith, Created Unequal: The Crisis in American Pay (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000). 

9

 Adrian Pagan and Aman Ullah, Nonparametric Econometrics (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 

1999). 

10 Bureau of Economic Analysis, User Notes from the January 1995 release of the 1989 County Typology Codes. 

For Further Reading 

Bagi, Faqir S., Richard J. Reeder, and Samuel D. Calhoun. “Federal Funding’s Unique Role in Appalachia.” Rural 

Development Perspectives 14, no. 1 (1999): 14-21. 

Black, Dan A., Terra McKinnish, and Seth G. Sanders. “Does the Availability of High Wage Jobs for Low Skilled 

Men Affect Welfare Expenditures? Evidence from Shocks to the Coal and Steel Industries.” Journal of 

Public Economics 85, no. 2 (2003): 185-206. 

McLaughlin, Diane K., Daniel T. Lichter, and Stephen A. Matthews (with the assistance of Glynis Daniels and 

James Cameron). “Demographic Diversity and Economic Change in Appalachia.” ARC Research Paper 

(Washington, D.C.: Appalachian Regional Commission, July 1999).