Socio-Economic Review of Appalachia

Appalachia Then and Now:

An Update of “The Realities of Deprivation”

Reported to the President in 1964

Andrew M. Isserman

Revised November, 1996

Abstract: In its influential 1964 report, Appalachia, the President’s Appalachian Regional

Commission characterized Appalachia as a “region apart — geographically and statistically.” It

stressed the region’s low income, lack of urbanization, high unemployment, lack of jobs, deficits

in education and living standards, and declines in population. That characterization became the

basis of a regional development policy aimed at “the introduction of Appalachia and its people

into fully active membership in the American society.” This paper repeats the statistical analysis

underlying the 1960 report. It asks whether the findings of the original report are still valid. The

answer is unequivocal. The traditional characterization of Appalachia is incorrect. Conditions in

Appalachia have improved greatly, and the region is catching up with the rest of the nation.

Appalachia still lags the nation, however, and parts of the region still suffer the “realities of

deprivation” identified by the 1964 report. Those Appalachian counties are among the worst off

places in the nation.

Acknowledgments: This research was conducted under contract to the Appalachian Regional

Commission. The interpretations and opinions expressed are those of the author and do not

necessarily reflect official positions of the Appalachian Regional Commission.
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OVERVIEW

John F. Kennedy convened his President’s Appalachian Regional Commission (PARC) on

April 9, 1963. He asked it to study the region and prepare a comprehensive action plan for its

economic development. Central to the resultant plan was a new regional organization, the

Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC). Underlying the ARC mission was PARC’s clear

concept of the Appalachian problem. The opening and closing words of the PARC report to the

President come straight to the point:

Appalachia is a region apart — geographically and statistically.

The Appalachian program will be many programs, unified only by their

singleness of focus: the introduction of Appalachia and its people into fully active

membership in the American society.

Appalachia, the report argued, differed from the rest of the country in the mid-1960s

because of its terrain and limited accessibility and because of the condition of its people, both

socially and economically. The supporting statistical analysis showed how Appalachia was a

region apart in socio-economic terms because of its low income, lack of urbanization, deficits in

education, and deficits in living standards. While recognizing the heterogeneity of Appalachia, the

report stressed that

Appalachia is more striking in its homogeneity than in its diversity. Unlike

though they may be, its subregions share an unhappy distinction: rural

Appalachia lags behind rural America; urban Appalachia lags behind urban

America; and metropolitan Appalachia lags behind metropolitan America.

This paper revisits that characterization of Appalachia as a lagging region, each of whose

parts lags its counterparts in the rest of the nation. Using a subset of the original variables or

closely related ones, this study updates and extends Chapter 1, “The Realities of Deprivation,” of

the 1964 PARC report. Important questions motivate this research:

• Have conditions in Appalachia improved?

• Has Appalachia been catching up with the rest of the nation?

• Does Appalachia still lag the nation?

• Do the “realities of deprivation” remain particularly severe in parts of Appalachia?

This paper has two main parts. The first part probes the findings and conclusions of the

original report. It answers the first three questions above and a related one: Is the popular image

of Appalachia, as reflected in the 1964 report, still valid today? The second part has a broader

scope. It examines data for all counties in the continental United States to identify those areas in

Appalachia where conditions remain the most severe and areas elsewhere in the nation where

people suffer from similarly adverse conditions.
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GEOGRAPHICAL CATEGORIES

This report, like the 1964 one, examines statistics for Appalachia as a whole and for

various partitions of Appalachia. There are noteworthy methodological differences, however.

Congress defines the boundaries of official Appalachia, and there have been changes since the

1964 report. This study uses current definitions. Therefore, the statistics for the 1960s and 1990s

include all 13 Appalachian states, not merely the ten states included in the 1964 report.

Accordingly, the numbers for the 1960s here are not identical to those in the 1964 report.

This analysis adds subregions and categories of counties not found in the original report.

The three subregions examined here, Northern, Central, and Southern Appalachia, are official

designations of the Appalachian Regional Commission. Metropolitan and nonmetropolitan, two

categories used in the original report, here reflect the current official designations by the Office of

Management and Budget. Also, instead of defining counties as only metropolitan or

nonmetropolitan, this study uses a seven category continuum adapted from a system defined by

the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The county categories are

Metropolitan Counties

1. Counties of metropolitan areas of 1 million population or more

2. Counties in metropolitan areas of 250,000 to 1 million population

3. Counties in metropolitan areas of fewer than 250,000 population

Nonmetropolitan

4. Counties adjacent to a metropolitan area with an urban population of 20,000 or more

5. Counties not adjacent to a metropolitan area with an urban population of 20,000 or

more

6. Counties adjacent to a metropolitan area with an urban population of fewer than

20,000

7. Counties not adjacent to a metropolitan area with an urban population of 20,000 or

more

These seven urbanization categories capture directly some concerns of the original report.

Classification of nonmetropolitan counties by size of the urban population, that is people living in

cities or towns of 2,500 or more, recognizes what the 1964 report characterized as the lack of

“proper towns” in parts of Appalachia. The focus on adjacency to metropolitan areas, defined not

only as physical adjacency but also in terms of job commuting to the central metropolitan

counties, helps to identify the spatial separation from job opportunities and human services noted

by the original report. In the text, the term, most rural, refers to categories 6 and 7, which have

the fewest people living in urban areas. The term, most isolated, refers to categories 5 and 7,

which have the least access to metropolitan economies in terms of jobs. Category 7, therefore, is

the most rural, most isolated group, whereas Category 5 is isolated but relatively urban and

Category 6 is more connected to metropolitan America, hence, less isolated, but still relatively

rural.

Although the correspondence between urbanization categories and various socioeconomic characteristics should not be overdrawn, these seven categories do represent a
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continuum not only of urbanization but also of several socio-economic conditions. Much of the

Appalachian condition relative to the rest of the nation can be understood in terms of its

urbanization relative to the nation.

To gain further perspective on the Appalachian condition, the region is compared in

several instances to other regions of the country. The comparison standard is the eight regions

defined by the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA):

1. New England

2. Mideast

3. Great Lakes

4. Plains

5. Southeast

6. Southwest

7. Rocky Mountain

8. Far West.

Their boundaries overlap with Appalachia’s boundaries, with Appalachia containing parts of the

Mideast, Great Plains, and Southeast. Comparisons between Appalachia and the BEA regions

refer exclusively to their non-Appalachian portions.

THE HALLMARKS OF APPALACHIA?

The 1964 report characterized Appalachia in terms of several gaps between it and the

nation and presented supporting statistics. This report takes as its questions the answers of the

1964 report. It asks whether those answers are still valid. The gaps, both then and now, are

examined to determine whether they are indeed still hallmarks of Appalachia. As in 1964, the

comparison is between the region and the nation. The nation, however, is defined here to be the

rest of the nation, that is, the non-Appalachian United States. How does Appalachia compare to

the rest of the nation? To make the text more graceful, the terms rest-of-the-nation or nonAppalachian are used sparingly. Unless indicated otherwise, the comparisons are always of

Appalachia and its parts to the rest of the nation and its corresponding parts.

Lack of urbanization?

Appalachia’s image is rural. The 1964 report stressed a “lack of urbanization.” Yet, even

in 1969 the majority of Appalachians (59 percent) lived within the boundaries of today’s

metropolitan areas. The popular rural image best fits Central Appalachia, where both in 1969 and

today only 15 percent of the population resides in metropolitan areas. In contrast, Northern

Appalachia and Southern Appalachia were and remain 60 to 65 percent metropolitan.

Only in a relative sense is Appalachia’s rural image accurate. Although three of every five

Appalachians live in metropolitan areas, four of five of the rest of the nation’s population do so.

The metropolitan share even reaches 96 percent for the Mideast and 91 percent for the Far West.

Likewise, fewer than 10 percent of Appalachians live in the most rural counties (Categories 6 and

7), but only five percent of the rest of the nation does. Within metropolitan areas, moreover,

Appalachia’s population is disproportionately in the smaller ones (Category 3), which house one

third of the Appalachian population but only one-sixth of the rest of the nation’s population.

Finally, whereas 64 percent of the non-Appalachian population is in metropolitan areas of 250,000
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or more (Categories 1 and 2), only 26 percent of the Appalachian population lives in these large

cities. At the extreme is Central Appalachia with no metropolitan areas of 250,000 or more.

Many comparisons between Appalachia and the rest of the nation reflect the fact that

Appalachia includes few large cities and is relatively rural. Yet, Appalachia is not unique among

American regions in this regard. The Plains region matches Appalachia at only 59 percent

metropolitan, and the Rocky Mountain region is but 64 percent metropolitan.

In summary, Appalachia remains relatively rural, but not uniquely rural or predominately

rural. Its population is one-fourth in large metropolitan areas (Categories 1 and 2), three fifths in

smaller metropolitan areas (Category 3) or adjacent to metropolitan areas (Categories 4 and 6),

one-eighth in more isolated, freestanding urban counties (Category 5), and one twentieth in the

most isolated, most rural counties (Category 7). Appalachia has proportionally fewer people in

large metropolitan areas and proportionally more people in smaller metropolitan areas as well as

every nonmetropolitan category.

Note that these findings reflect the official boundaries. Had Atlanta, Cincinnati,

Columbus, and other major cities on the very edge of official Appalachia been included in the

regional definition, Appalachia’s urbanization gap would not be as pronounced. In short,

Appalachia was defined to be a relatively rural area with few large cities. Likewise, the rural

nature of Central Appalachia stands out precisely because it has been defined as one of three

subregions — even though it includes less than 10 percent of the Appalachian population. Thus,

there is a degree of circularity in regional definitions. A region, like Appalachia, popularly viewed

and partially defined as the rural backyard of several states, consequently will be more rural than

other regions.

The important definitional questions are (1) whether the region is properly defined for the

objective of effecting regional economic development, (2) whether its definition as a more rural

region has implications regarding other socio-economic conditions, and (3) whether those

conditions are primarily rural attributes or somehow more fundamentally Appalachian attributes.

The first of these questions is beyond the scope of this report, but the other two are considered in

this section.

Low Income?

In 1969 Appalachia’s per capita income was 78 percent of the rest of the nation’s. By

1992 it had reached 83 percent. Again Central Appalachia stands out. It climbed from 56 to 67

percent of the non-Appalachian level but remains by far the subregion with the lowest income.

Northern Appalachia, the leader in 1969 at 85 percent of the non-Appalachian level, remains at 85

percent today. Southern Appalachia has almost caught up with Northern Appalachia, going from

73 to 83 percent of the non-Appalachian level.

Most of the Appalachian per capita income gap can readily be understood in terms of

urbanization. Metropolitan areas have higher per capita incomes (and often higher costs of

living). Excluding Appalachia, the nation’s nonmetropolitan areas have only 78 percent of the
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national per capita income in 1992, up from 76 percent in 1969. Thus, the nation has a persistent

metro-nonmetro income gap. The statistics for Appalachia and its subregions are pulled

downward precisely because Appalachia has relatively few metropolitan areas, particularly large

ones, which have the highest per capita incomes.

The Appalachian income lag is far less severe if examined more carefully with respect to

urbanization. As the 1964 report pointed out, metropolitan Appalachia lags metropolitan

America and nonmetropolitan Appalachia lags nonmetropolitan America. The gaps, however, are

far smaller than heretofore believed — if one adjusts for the size of metropolitan area. Overall,

metropolitan Appalachia improved from 80 percent to 86 percent of the national metropolitan per

capita income between 1969 and 1992. Dividing metropolitan areas into the three population

categories reveals that Appalachia has reached 92 to 96 percent for every category (compared to

85 to 91 percent in 1969). Meanwhile, nonmetropolitan Appalachia has climbed from 89 to 93

percent of the nonmetropolitan income level. From a population welfare standpoint, these

remaining gaps may well be unimportant because of differences in cost of living.

The Appalachian income lag can be formally divided into the part that is due to

urbanization differences and the part that is due to income differences within each urban-rural

category. As noted, Appalachia has 83 percent of the national per capita income. Seen in another

way, the gap is 17 percentage points. Less urbanization causes 10 percentage points of the gap,

and lower per capita incomes 7 percentage points. These estimates result from multiplying the

national population distribution among urban categories times the Appalachian per capita income

for each category. Thus, the resultant Appalachian per capita income standardized for

urbanization is 93 percent of the national one.

Only one category of county still exhibits the income lag commonly associated with

Appalachia. People in the most rural, most isolated Appalachian counties (Category 7) still have

only 82 percent of the per capita income of their counterparts elsewhere in the country. Yet, this

group is only 5 percent of Appalachia’s population. In Central Appalachia, however, these places

account for 20 percent of the population; they have only 77 percent of the per capita income of

such places elsewhere.

In summary, again relatively few places seem to fit the prevailing image of Appalachia.

The others have small income lags relative to their counterparts. Appalachia as a whole has

relatively low per capita incomes because it has few big cities and more isolated, rural areas. The

Appalachian population distribution along the urban-rural scale causes most of the income lag. At

each level of the scale except the smallest, Appalachian income is more than 90 percent of the

corresponding national level. Standardizing for urbanization, Appalachia has reached 93 percent

of the national level. Furthermore, even unstandardized, Appalachia does not stand out alone.

Nonmetropolitan Appalachia has 1 to 2 percent higher per capita income than either the Southeast

or Southwest regions, and metropolitan Appalachia has 94 to 98 percent of the per capita income

of the metropolitan Southeast, Southwest, and Rocky Mountain regions.

Poverty?
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By reputation Appalachia is a poor region, but that reputation is only partially supported

by statistics. The 1970 census revealed that 18 percent of Appalachians had incomes below the

official poverty level. That percentage fell to 15.2 percent by the 1990 census. Again, urbanization

matters. In 1970 the Appalachian poverty rates were 14 percent in metropolitan areas and 23

percent elsewhere, while the rest of the United States had rates of 11 and 20 percent, respectively.

Hence, 25 years ago Appalachia lagged by three percentage points in each case. By 1990 the two

Appalachian rates were 11 and 16 percent — 1 percentage point higher than the rest of the

nation’s metropolitan rate and 2 percentage points higher than the rest’s nonmetropolitan rate.

The largest remaining gaps, 3 and 5 percentage points, occur in the relatively isolated counties

(Categories 5 and 7).

Appalachia has poverty, considerable poverty, but the region does not stand out relative to

the rest of the nation. Two regions have higher 1990 poverty rates than Appalachia. The

Southeast and the Southwest have nonmetropolitan rates of 18 and 20 percent and metropolitan

rates of 11 and 13 percent. Again, however, when Central Appalachia is considered separately, it

fits the Appalachian image. It has a 24 percent nonmetropolitan poverty rate and a 15 percent

metropolitan one. These rates are sharp improvements over its 1970 rates of 36 and 20 percent.

The special case of Central Appalachia becomes clearer when using the urban-rural

continuum to examine the three subregions. Except for the most rural, isolated counties, where it

has a 3 percentage point gap, Northern Appalachia is within 1 percentage point of the nation, plus

or minus, in each category. Southern Appalachia is never worse than 1 percentage point behind

the nation. Yet, Central Appalachia, despite its marked improvement, lags its counterparts in

every category by 5 to 10 percentage points.

Deficits in Education?

Like the other indicators thus far, educational attainment ties closely to urbanization.

Within Appalachia the percentage of the adult population that completed high school ranges from

53 percent in the most rural, isolated counties to 79 percent in the largest metropolitan areas.

Both statistics are impressive changes from the 1970 Appalachian rates of 27 and 52 percent. In

two decades, or one high school generation, the isolated rural areas of Appalachia have caught up

to the earlier metropolitan rates. During the same period, Appalachia’s large metropolitan areas

have caught up with their corresponding national rates of 1970.

Despite this remarkable transformation, Appalachia still lags the nation in educational

attainment. High school graduates nationally now account for 77 percent of adults in

metropolitan areas and 70 percent elsewhere. Appalachia is 7 percentage points behind the

nation, with the metropolitan areas 5 percentage points behind and other areas 8 percentage

points behind. The largest gaps, as in 1970, belong to the two groups of counties that are not

adjacent to metropolitan areas. They still lag their counterparts elsewhere in the nation by 10 and

15 percentage points.

The Central Appalachian story again can be viewed clearly through the urbanization

continuum. Two-thirds of its people reside in the more isolated counties, compared to only 11
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percent in the North and 15 percent in the South. (Central Appalachia is not synonymous with

such counties; roughly two-thirds of the Appalachians living in isolated counties are not in Central

Appalachia.) In all, 51 percent of the adults in nonmetropolitan Central Appalachia have

completed high school, compared to 70 percent in Northern Appalachia and 59 percent in

Southern Appalachia. Thus, only the North has matched the national education level. The range

is smaller for metropolitan areas, 65 percent in Central Appalachia, 70 percent in Southern, and

75 percent in Northern.

Appalachia remains a place apart in terms of the educational attainment of its adult

population, but again it does not stand alone. With 62 percent of its nonmetropolitan adult

population having completed high school, Appalachia matches the Southeast and comes close to

the Southwest’s 65 percent. The Appalachian lag results largely from Central Appalachia being

11 to 21 percentage points behind its counterparts in each urbanization category and from

Southern Appalachia being 10 to 13 points behind in smaller metropolitan areas and every

nonmetropolitan category. In contrast, Northern Appalachia is within 3 percentage points in

every category except the smallest, more isolated counties.

Although the Appalachian lag persists, educational attainment has improved dramatically

in the region. Note that the measure used here and in the 1964 report incorporates the entire

adult population. Increased attainment reflects primarily the education of young people, so the

persistent gap largely reflects the more limited education of older generations. Studies that have

focused exclusively on teenagers and young adults do not show similar education gaps.

Deficits in Living Standards?

The 1964 report examined housing conditions as a measure of living standards. One

hackneyed image of Appalachia is the outhouse, complete with crescent moon carved into the

door. Indeed, only 61 percent of Appalachian housing units had complete indoor plumbing in

1960 compared to 75 percent nationally. Central Appalachia again came closest to matching the

popular image — just 37 percent of its housing had complete plumbing — but the other

subregions both lagged the nation, too, with the North at 70 percent and the South at 55 percent.

Again, there is a clear relationship to urbanization. Within Appalachia complete plumbing

in 1960 ranged from 32 percent of housing units in the small, isolated counties to 77 percent in

the most populous metropolitan counties. Outside Appalachia the same range was 51 to 84

percent. The Appalachian gap was 6 or 7 percentage points for each of the three metropolitan

categories but 21 percentage points for the most rural, isolated counties.

The Appalachian plumbing gap has virtually disappeared. By 1990 all but 2 percent of

Appalachian housing had complete indoor plumbing. Even in Central Appalachia all but 5 percent

of housing has full plumbing. The lowest numbers are still found in rural isolated counties, 91

percent with complete plumbing in Central Appalachia and 90 percent in Northern Appalachia.

This category has the largest gap compared to the rest of the nation, 93 percent versus 96

percent.
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Deficits in Jobs?

Unemployment. The 1964 report described Appalachia as “deeply unemployed.” In 1960

the region had 6.8 percent unemployment, and the nation had 5.0 percent. Metropolitan

Appalachia’s unemployment exceeded the nation’s other metropolitan areas, 6.5 to 5.0 percent.

Similarly, nonmetropolitan Appalachia exceeded its counterparts, 7.2 to 5.2 percent. For every

urban-rural category, Appalachia had unemployment rates 1.3 to 2.3 percentage points higher,

despite the considerable outmigration of the previous decade. Only one region had a higher

unemployment rate than Appalachia, the Mideast with a nonmetropolitan rate of 7.6 percent.

Thirty years later Appalachia’s unemployment rate was again 6.8 percent, but the rest of

the nation had climbed to 6.3 percent. The Appalachian lag had been cut by three-quarters, but

ironically by the rest of the nation moving toward the Appalachian level. Metropolitan

Appalachia even had a lower unemployment rate than the remaining metropolitan areas, 6.1

percent to 6.2 percent. Nonmetropolitan Appalachia had 7.9 percent unemployment — still

higher than the nation’s nonmetropolitan rate by 1.1 percentage points but smaller than its former

2.0 percentage point gap. The seven-part metropolitan continuum is again relevant. Appalachia

is better off than the rest of the nation for the first two categories but worse off for the next five.

The biggest Appalachian gap remains in the most rural, most isolated counties. Their 8.7 percent

unemployment rate is 2.0 percentage points higher than its national counterpart.

Appalachia now has lower unemployment rates than several regions. Its 1990

metropolitan rate is lower than those of New England, Great Lakes, Southwest, and Far West.

Its nonmetropolitan rate is lower than the Southwest’s and Far West’s.

Central Appalachia again comes closest to fitting the region’s image. Its 1990

unemployment rate was 10.2 percent, while Northern Appalachia’s was 7.3 percent and Southern

Appalachia’s 5.7 percent. Central Appalachia’s nonmetropolitan rate of 10.7 percent, up from 8.9

percent in 1960, is almost 4 percentage points higher than the corresponding national rate and

exceeds the nonmetropolitan rate of every region by 2.5 percentage points or more. Central

Appalachia’s metropolitan rate of 7.7 percent, down from 6.9, is greater than the unemployment

rate of every region. In sharp contrast, Southern Appalachia had a lower nonmetropolitan

unemployment rate than every region except the Mideast and the Plains and a lower metropolitan

rate than all but the Plains and Rocky Mountains.

Jobs. Appalachia’s job gap is “far greater” than the unemployment statistics suggest,

argued the original report, because of “the many men and women who, in despair of ever finding

jobs, have given up the search and withdrawn from the labor force.” Unemployment statistics do

indeed underestimate the number of people who would work if jobs were available (although not

necessarily any more so for Appalachia than for other regions with histories of high

unemployment). An alternative measure is the jobs to people ratio. Use of the unemployment

rate implies that only the officially unemployed want a job, whereas use of the jobs/people ratio

implies that everyone wants a job, including children, elderly, students, disabled, and prisoners.

Since the truth is somewhere in between, this study examines both measures.
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The jobs/people ratio confirms the Appalachian job gap of the 1960s. Appalachia had 40

jobs per 100 people in 1969, while the rest of the nation had 46. All the Appalachian subregions

lagged the nation, ranging from Central Appalachia with 31 jobs per 100 people to Southern

Appalachia with 43 jobs per 100. Metropolitan Appalachia at 42 jobs, lagged behind every U.S.

region by 4 to 7 jobs, while nonmetropolitan Appalachia at 37 jobs was 2 to 7 jobs behind every

region. Controlling for urbanization does not make these gaps disappear. The three Appalachian

subregions lagged behind all their counterparts by urbanization category with but three

exceptions. The mid-sized metropolitan areas and the more urban nonmetropolitan counties of

Southern Appalachia (Categories 2, 4, and 5) have more jobs per capita than their national

counterparts.

By 1992 metropolitan Appalachia had reached 51 jobs per 100 people, a gain of 9, and

nonmetropolitan Appalachia 45 jobs, a gain of 8. The rest of the nation had similar gains,

however, leaving Appalachia still 5 jobs per 100 behind in metropolitan areas and 4 jobs

elsewhere. The subregions still lag in every category except for the same three in Southern

Appalachia. As before, no U.S region has a lower jobs/people ratio than Appalachia in its

metropolitan areas, but nonmetropolitan Appalachia has caught up with one region, the

Southwest.

The jobs/people ratio shows considerable progress but confirms the continued deficit of

jobs in Appalachia. The present deficit may be less severe than these numbers suggest because of

demographic change. Appalachians have adjusted to the deficit by moving out of the region since

the 1950s. The result is a relatively elderly population. Quite likely, if the jobs/people ratios were

adjusted for age of population, the Appalachian job deficit would be smaller.

Altogether, these numbers support a popular image. Given the number of people who

choose to remain in Appalachia, there were and are not enough jobs. Consequently, labor force

participation and incomes are depressed. Some observers claim that an active informal,

unreported economy closes the job gap, but the size of the informal economy has not been

measured reliably and there is no evidence that it provides more jobs in Appalachia than

elsewhere.

Job Growth. One image is incorrect, however. The Appalachian economy is neither

declining nor stagnating. Although the job deficit persists, Appalachia is creating new jobs and

growing faster than many other parts of the country. The number of jobs in nonmetropolitan

Appalachia increased by 41 percent from 1969 to 1992 — matching, not lagging, the job growth

of nonmetropolitan America. Metropolitan Appalachia gained 41 percent in jobs, too, but other

metropolitan areas gained 58 percent. Northern Appalachia, in this case, pulls down the

Appalachian average with its metropolitan growth of 18 percent and nonmetropolitan growth of

27 percent. On this measure, Central Appalachia bests the nation, growing 65 and 53 percent, as

does Southern Appalachia, growing 73 and 52 percent. Even with the dampening effect of

Northern Appalachia, nonmetropolitan Appalachia grew faster than the Great Lakes, Plains, and

Southeast, and metropolitan Appalachia grew faster than New England, the Mideast, and the

Great Lakes.
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Population Decline?

Population decline and outmigration have been hallmarks of the Appalachian image since

mid-century. The 1964 report noted that Appalachia lost 2 million people due to migration

between 1950 and 1960. Its population only grew 1 percent that decade, while the nation grew

20 percent. The report argued, “Population trends in Appalachia offer the most convincing

statistics to prove the deficit of opportunities which pervades the entire region.”

Today’s data are markedly different. Appalachia is growing, although not as fast as the

nation. Appalachia’s population increased 16 percent between 1969 and 1992, while the nation’s

population increased 28 percent. The growth lag is primarily metropolitan, 14 percent growth

versus 30 percent. The nonmetropolitan lag is relatively small, 17 percent growth versus 20

percent. A dearth of dynamic cities is the root of Appalachia’s slower than average growth.

A closer look reveals that parts of Appalachia are growing faster than their national

counterparts. Southern Appalachia has no growth lag. Its metropolitan portion exceeds the

nation, 41 percent growth to 30 percent, and its nonmetropolitan portion leads the nation 27

percent to 20 percent. It leads the nation in all but the second of the seven urbanization

categories. Central Appalachia, although lagging the nation overall, is only 2 percentage points

behind in the nonmetropolitan rate and leads the nation by 10 to 12 percentage points in the two

most rural categories. For all Appalachia, these most rural counties have grown faster than their

national counterparts, 16 percent versus 5 percent in the case of the most rural, most isolated

counties.

Appalachia not only is no longer stagnant or declining it is growing faster than several

other regions. Nonmetropolitan Appalachia grew faster than the Great Lakes or the Plains, and

metropolitan Appalachia grew faster than New England, the Mideast and the Great Lakes.

This time Northern Appalachia provides the lone exception to fit the popular image.

Heavily hit by the transformation of manufacturing and coal mining, it only grew 2 percent in

population from 1969 through 1992. Its metropolitan areas declined by 2 percent, while its

nonmetropolitan areas grew only 10 percent. In each category, its metropolitan areas lagged the

nation by more than 30 percentage points, although population loss occurred only in the most

populous category (primarily the Pittsburgh area). All its nonmetropolitan county categories

lagged the nation, too, except the most rural, isolated one, which grew 9 percent but only

accounts for 2 percent of the subregion’s population. Perhaps the most positive statement that

can be made is that, despite the industrial transformation that affected the region, all categories of

Northern Appalachia grew 1 to 9 percent except the largest metropolitan one.
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Summary: The Three Questions

In addition to updating the 1964 report and reexamining its image of Appalachia, this

analysis sought to answer three important questions. Yes is the answer to all three questions.

This section notes a few main points of evidence.

1. Fact: Conditions in Appalachia have improved greatly.

• The percentage of Appalachians in poverty declined from 18 percent to 13 percent between

1970 and 1990.

• The percentage of adults who graduated high school jumped from 44 percent to 68 percent.

• The percentage of housing units with complete plumbing has leaped from 61 percent to 98

percent between 1960 and 1990.

• The number of jobs per 100 people jumped from 40 in 1969 to 49 in 1992.

• The number of jobs increased 41 percent between 1969 and 1992.

• Appalachia’s population increased 16 percent between 1969 and 1992.

2. Fact: Appalachia has been catching up with the rest of the nation.

• Appalachian per capita income has reached 93 percent of the national level, standardizing for

level of urbanization.

• Appalachian per capita income for nonmetropolitan areas is higher than that of the Southeast

and Southwest regions of the United States.

• Appalachian poverty rates are below Southeastern and Southwestern ones.

• Metropolitan Appalachia has 1 person per 100 more in poverty than do the rest of the nation’s

metropolitan areas; nonmetropolitan Appalachia has 2 people per 100 more than its

counterpart.

• Appalachia’s metropolitan unemployment rate in 1990 was 0.1 percentage point lower than

the nation’s.

• Employment growth is greater in Appalachia than in several U.S. regions.

• Appalachia’s population is growing faster than some other regions’.

3. Fact: Appalachia still lags the nation.

• The most rural, most isolated Appalachian counties have only 82 percent of the per capita

income of such counties elsewhere.

• The most isolated Appalachian counties have 3 to 5 more people per 100 in poverty than such

counties elsewhere.

• Central Appalachia has considerably higher poverty rates than the nation, with 24 people per

100 living in poverty.

• The nonmetropolitan unemployment rate in Appalachia was still 2 percentage points higher

than the nation’s in 1990 and was almost 11 percent in Central Appalachia..

• Appalachia has lower educational attainment than the rest of the nation, with 7 fewer high

school graduates per 100 adults.

• Only half the adults in nonmetropolitan Central Appalachia have graduated high school.

• Appalachia has six fewer jobs per 100 people than the rest of the nation.
13

WHERE DO THE REALITIES OF DEPRIVATION REMAIN PARTICULARLY

SEVERE?

Heterogeneity characterizes Appalachia. For example, Central Appalachia has the most

poverty, and Northern Appalachia the least growth. Likewise, metropolitan areas have higher per

capita incomes, higher education levels, and lower unemployment rates than other places. This

section takes a closer look within the region and compares it to other parts of the country. It

does so using maps that depict all counties in the continental United States. The fundamental

questions are where in Appalachia do conditions remain particularly adverse and where in the rest

of the nation do people suffer from similar conditions. Again, the variables are based on the

original 1964 report and its characterization of Appalachia.

Poverty 1990

In the 837 shaded counties below, more than 20 percent of the people lived in poverty in

1990. A cluster of Appalachian counties centered on Kentucky is readily apparent. Perhaps more

striking is the paucity of shaded Appalachian counties to the north and south — testimony to the

diversity of Appalachia. Also, evident are several clusters of high poverty outside Appalachia.

The next map shows the 418 counties with more than 25 percent of their residents living

in poverty. An Appalachian cluster remains distinct. The Mississippi Delta, the Four Corners
14

area, and the Texas border come more sharply into focus as other regions of extreme poverty.

The final map shows the 193 counties with more than 30 percent of their people in

poverty. Appalachia includes some of the worst off counties in the nation, but the borders of

Appalachia exclude numerous poor counties in several southern Appalachian states.

The poverty maps show that the realities of deprivation remain particularly severe in parts

of the region. All Appalachia does not suffer these conditions nor is the rest of the nation immune

from them. Appalachia’s borders neither delineate a region of poverty nor contain the only

clusters of very poor places, but poverty persists in the region.

Educational Attainment 1990

Fewer than 60 percent of the adults in the 664 shaded counties completed high school.

Limited formal education attainment is primarily a southern phenomenon, and Appalachia fits the

national pattern. Its northern part is unshaded, but southern Appalachia contains many shaded

counties.

The next map shows the 324 counties where fewer than 55 percent of adults completed

high school. The middle of Appalachia and the Mississippi Delta come into focus as areas of

especially low educational attainment within the Southeast.
15

Emphasizing the 187 counties where fewer than 52 percent of adults have completed high school

brings the Appalachian cluster into sharper focus.

The maps of formal educational attainment echo the maps for poverty. The phrase, “realities of

deprivation,” still describes part of Appalachia. The final map shows the 128 counties where

more than half the adults did not graduate high school, and the central Appalachian group stands

out sharply.
16

Unemployment 1990

A large cluster of Appalachian counties is readily apparent among the 663 counties with

unemployment rates above 8.5 percent in 1990.

Focusing on the 328 counties with 10.5 percent or more unemployment reveals several clusters

across the nation, including central Appalachia and the Mississippi Delta. Two areas once served

by regional commissions stand out, too. The striking block of counties in Arizona, Utah, and

New Mexico recalls the defunct Four Corners Regional Commission, whereas the group in

Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota suggests the Upper Great Lakes Regional Commission.

Two other areas, one formerly served by the Ozarks Regional Commission and including parts of

Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kansas, and Missouri, and one formerly served by the New England

Regional Commission, show fewer extreme unemployment areas.

In short, Appalachia contains counties where people face very high unemployment rates,

but the Mississippi Delta, the Texas border, the Four Corners, and the Upper Great Lakes also

contain such places. The roots of the unemployment are varied, as are its ethnicity — whites in

Appalachia, African-Americans in the Delta, Hispanics in Texas, and Native Americans in the

Four Corners and elsewhere. The last map shows 207 counties with unemployment greater than

11.5 per cent and again reveals several Appalachian counties, but also the other clusters.
17

Jobs 1994

There are 745 counties with fewer than 40 jobs for every 100 people. They are mainly in

the eastern United States, partially reflecting shorter intercounty commuting distances there.

Clusters of places where jobs are scarce appear in Appalachia, the Mississippi Delta, the Great

Lakes, the Four Corners, and the Ozarks regions. Counties with large numbers of students,

retired people, and others not available for work may have low jobs to people ratios, but neither

those explanations nor commuting are likely explanations of those clusters. The second map,

showing 391 counties with fewer than 35 jobs per 100 people, again reveals an Appalachian

cluster.
18

As was the case with the other measures, Appalachia contains a group of counties that are

among the worst off in the nation. Once again, being worst off neither defines all of Appalachia

accurately nor characterizes portions of it exclusively. The final map shows the 159 counties with

fewer than 30 jobs for each 100 people. An Appalachian group centered on Kentucky and West

Virginia is evident.

Employment Growth 1969-94

Stagnation and decline are also part of the conventional vocabulary for describing

Appalachia. The following map shows the 190 counties where the number of jobs declined by

more than 10 percent over the quarter century. Conspicuous by its absence is Appalachia.
19

Loosening the standard to show all 361 counties that did not gain jobs over the period

1969-94 confirms that Appalachia has very few declining counties. Finally, a map of the 605

counties that either declined or grew less than 10 percent makes clear that stagnation and decline

are misnomers for Appalachia, although several strings of Appalachian counties are among this

group.

Of all the measures examined here, the one standard that reveals no major cluster of

Appalachian counties is employment growth. Almost the entire region has been growing,

including those areas centered on Kentucky that have been so readily apparent in the other maps.

Ironically, the only broad, valid characterization of all Appalachia justified by these maps is

Appalachia as a region of employment growth — not rapid growth but definitely not stagnation or

decline.
20

THEN AND NOW

The characterization of Appalachia promulgated by the Report of the President’s

Appalachian Regional Commission in 1964 is of limited validity today. At the time it reinforced

the popular image of Appalachia — low income, high poverty, limited education, poor living

standards, job deficits, high unemployment, outmigration, stagnation, and decline. Today those

conditions do not characterize the region as a whole. Current data support neither the 1964

characterization of Appalachia as a region apart statistically nor the 1964 assertion that

Appalachians lack fully active membership in the American society. Instead, the statistics show a

region that has improved greatly, still lags the nation on some broad indicators, and still contains

some of the worst off counties in the nation.

The statistical findings raise an immediate question. Was the 1964 characterization invalid

even then except for a relatively small part of official Appalachia? An answer can be sought in the

same kind of map used for today’s analysis. The following map shows the 458 counties in which

more than 7.5 percent of the labor force was unemployed in 1960. It reveals why Appalachia was

a legitimate and major national policy concern then. Leaping from the map is a contiguous belt of

high unemployment counties in eight of the original ten Appalachian states. No data for today

show Appalachia so clearly as a homogeneous, lagging region. Fewer Appalachian counties are

now among the nation’s worst off.

The map also supports the designation in 1965 of the Upper Great Lakes and the Four

Corners regions as Title 5 regional commissions. Appalachia was unique politically in the 1960s

in that it was the only contiguous region of high unemployment that affected so many states

simultaneously — a fact that may explain why the Appalachian Regional Commission received far

more Congressional support and appropriations than the short-lived Title V regional commissions.

Today fewer places in Appalachia fit the old images, but the realities of deprivation remain severe

in parts of Appalachia, as well as other parts of the country.