THE APPALACHIAN REGION: A DATA OVERVIEW FROM THE 2007-2011 AMERICAN COMMUNITY SURVEY Chartbook Kelvin Pollard Linda A. Jacobsen Population Reference Bureau Prepared for the Appalachian Regional Commission Under Contract #CO-16506-09 February 2013 The authors wish to thank Keith Witt of ARC for his support and guidance. THE APPALACHIAN REGION: A DATA OVERVIEW FROM THE 2007-2011 AMERICAN COMMUNITY SURVEY TABLE OF CONTENTS PAGE FOREWORD 3 CHAPTER 1. POPULATION BASICS Table 1.1: Population, Land Area, and Population Density in the Appalachian Region, 2007-2011 4 Figure 1.1: Population Distribution in the Appalachian Region, 2007-2011 5 Figure 1.2: Population per Square Mile of Land Area in the Appalachian Region, 2007-2011 6 CHAPTER 2. AGE Table 2.1: Population in the Appalachian Region by Age Group, 2007-2011 7 Figure 2.1: Percent of Population in the Appalachian Region Under Age 18, 2007-2011 8 Figure 2.2: Percent of Population in the Appalachian Region Ages 18 to 24, 2007-2011 9 Figure 2.3: Percent of Population in the Appalachian Region Ages 25 to 64, 2007-2011 10 Figure 2.4: Percent of Population in the Appalachian Region Ages 65 and Over, 2007-2011 11 Figure 2.5: Median Age of Persons in the Appalachian Region, 2007-2011 12 CHAPTER 3. RACE AND HISPANIC ORIGIN Table 3.1: Population in the Appalachian Region by Race and Hispanic Origin, 2007-2011 13 Figure 3.1: Percent of Population in the Appalachian Region That Is Minority, 2007-2011 14 Figure 3.2: Percent of Population in the Appalachian Region That Is Black Alone, not Hispanic, 2007-2011 15 Figure 3.3: Percent of Population in the Appalachian Region That Is Hispanic or Latino, 2007-2011 16 CHAPTER 4. HOUSING OCCUPANCY AND TENURE Table 4.1: Occupancy and Tenure of Housing Units in the Appalachian Region, 2007-2011 17 Figure 4.1: Percent of Housing Units in the Appalachian Region That Are Occupied, 2007-2011 18 Figure 4.2: Percent of Housing Units in the Appalachian Region That Are Vacant, 2007-2011 19 Figure 4.3: Percent Owner-Occupied Housing Units in the Appalachian Region, 2007-2011 20 Figure 4.4: Percent Renter-Occupied Housing Units in the Appalachian Region, 2007-2011 21 CHAPTER 5. EDUCATION Table 5.1: Educational Attainment of Persons Ages 25 and Over in the Appalachian Region, 2007-2011 22 Table 5.2: Educational Attainment of Persons Ages 25 to 64 in the Appalachian Region, 2007-2011 23 Table 5.3: Educational Attainment of Persons Ages 65 and Over in the Appalachian Region, 2007-2011 24 Figure 5.1: Percent of Persons Ages 25 and Over in the Appalachian Region With a High School Diploma or More, 2007-2011 25 Figure 5.2: Percent of Persons Ages 25 and Over in the Appalachian Region With a High School Diploma but With No 26 Postsecondary Degree, 2007-2011 Figure 5.3: Percent of Persons Ages 25 and Over in the Appalachian Region With a Bachelor’s Degree or More, 2007-2011 27 Figure 5.4: Percent of Persons Ages 25 to 64 in the Appalachian Region With a High School Diploma or More, 2007-2011 28 Figure 5.5: Percent of Persons Ages 25 to 64 in the Appalachian Region With a Bachelor’s Degree or More, 2007-2011 29 Figure 5.6: Percent of Persons Ages 65 and Over in the Appalachian Region With a Bachelor’s Degree or More, 2007-2011 30 CHAPTER 6. LABOR FORCE, EMPLOYMENT, AND UNEMPLOYMENT Table 6.1: Labor Force, Employment, and Unemployment Status of Persons Ages 25 to 64 in the Appalachian 31 Region, 2007-2011 Figure 6.1: Percent of Persons Ages 25 to 64 in the Appalachian Region Who Are In the Labor Force, 2007-2011 32 Figure 6.2: Employment Rate for Civilian Labor Force Participants Ages 25 to 64 in the Appalachian Region, 2007-2011 33 Figure 6.3: Unemployment Rate for Civilian Labor Force Participants Ages 25 to 64 in the Appalachian Region, 2007-2011 34 CHAPTER 7. INCOME AND POVERTY Table 7.1: Household, Family, and Per Capita Income in the Appalachian Region (In Adjusted 2011 Dollars), 2007-2011 35 Table 7.2: Poverty Status of Persons in the Appalachian Region, 2007-2011 36 1 PAGE Figure 7.1: Mean Household Income in the Appalachian Region (In Adjusted 2011 Dollars), 2007-2011 37 Figure 7.2: Median Household Income in the Appalachian Region (In Adjusted 2011 Dollars), 2007-2011 38 Figure 7.3: Mean Family Income in the Appalachian Region (In Adjusted 2011 Dollars), 2007-2011 39 Figure 7.4: Median Family Income in the Appalachian Region (In Adjusted 2011 Dollars), 2007-2011 40 Figure 7.5: Per Capita Income in the Appalachian Region (In Adjusted 2011 Dollars), 2007-2011 41 Figure 7.6: Percent of Persons in the Appalachian Region in Poverty, 2007-2011 42 CHAPTER 8. MIGRATION Table 8.1: Mobility Status of Persons Ages 1 and Over in the Appalachian Region, 2007-2011 43 Figure 8.1: Percent of Persons Ages 1 and Over in the Appalachian Region Who Had Moved in the Past Year, 2007-2011 44 Figure 8.2: Percent of Persons Ages 1 and Over in the Appalachian Region Who Had Migrated From Outside Their 45 County of Residence in the Past Year, 2007-2011 Figure 8.3: Percent of Persons Ages 1 and Over in the Appalachian Region Who Had Migrated From Outside Their 46 State of Residence in the Past Year, 2007-2011 2 FOREWORD The data contained in this chartbook come from the 2007-2011 American Community Survey. While the types of demographic and housing data included in Chapters 1 through 4 were also collected in the 2010 decennial census, the types of social and economic data included in Chapters 5 through 8 were not. This is because unlike previous censuses—which consisted of a “short form” of basic demographic and housing questions and a “long form” (used for a sample of households) that also asked detailed questions about social, economic, and housing characteristics—the 2010 census only had a short form. The decennial long form has been replaced by the American Community Survey (ACS), a nationwide study collected continuously every year in every county in the United States. The ACS is designed to provide communities with reliable and timely demographic, social, economic, and housing data each year. However, the annual sample size of the ACS is much smaller than the sample size of the decennial census long form; therefore, data from five years must be combined to provide reliable estimates for geographic areas with fewer than 20,000 people. Since a number of counties in the Appalachian region have fewer than 20,000 residents, we must use the 2007-2011 ACS data to have comparable statistics for all 420 counties in the region. The five-year ACS estimates for 2007-2011 represent concepts that are fundamentally different from those associated with data from the decennial census. While the main function of the census is to provide counts of people for congressional apportionment and legislative redistricting, the primary purpose of the ACS is to measure the changing characteristics of the U.S. population. Moreover, while the decennial census provides a “snapshot” of the U.S. population once every 10 years, the ACS has been described as a “moving video image” that is continually updated. Finally, while the census provides “point in time” estimates designed to approximate an area’s characteristics on a specific date, the ACS provides “period” estimates that represent data collected over a period of time. The five-year estimates in this chartbook, therefore, are data collected over the five-year (or 60-month) period from January 2007 through December 2011. These ACS estimates are not averages of monthly or annual values, but rather an aggregation of data collected over the five-year period. For areas with consistent population characteristics throughout the calendar year, ACS period estimates might not differ much from those that would result from a point-in-time survey like the decennial census. However, ACS period estimates might be noticeably different from point-in-time estimates for areas with seasonal populations or those that experience a natural disaster such as a hurricane. For example, a resort community in the upper Midwest might be dominated by locals in the winter months and by temporary workers and tourists in the summer months, with a corresponding decrease in employment rates during the winter and increase in these rates during the summer. In such a community, the ACS period estimate of the percent of persons in the labor force, which is based on data across the entire calendar year, would likely be higher than the decennial census point-in-time estimate from April 1. While five-year ACS data are needed to provide reliable estimates for areas with small populations, they can make it difficult to track trends in these areas. The 2007-2011 ACS data illustrate this problem. The 2007-2011 time period covers three distinct periods of economic activity: the months of economic growth in 2007 that preceded the onset of the recession in December of that year; the recession period itself from December 2007 through June 2009; and the beginning of the economic recovery that followed the downturn. Since the 2007-2011 ACS pools data from all three periods, it smooths out the extreme variations in economic measures that would be evident in annual data from the recent severe recession. 3 CHAPTER 1: POPULATION BASICS Table 1.1: Population, Land Area, and Population Density in the Appalachian Region, 2007-2011 Population per Population, Land Area Population, Land Area, and Density Square Mile of Land 2007-2011 (Square Miles) Area, 2007-2011 United States 306,603,772 3,531,905 86.8 Appalachian Region 25,138,634 204,452 123.0 Subregions Northern Appalachia 8,386,003 56,980 147.2 North Central Appalachia 2,414,961 29,337 82.3 Central Appalachia 1,916,690 29,773 64.4 South Central Appalachia 4,689,747 34,997 134.0 Southern Appalachia 7,731,233 53,365 144.9 County Types Large Metros (pop. 1 million +) 5,739,321 17,579 326.5 Small Metros (pop. <1 million) 10,131,903 50,179 201.9 Nonmetro, Adjacent to Large Metros 1,694,488 18,822 90.0 Nonmetro, Adjacent to Small Metros 5,035,983 69,090 72.9 Rural (nonmetro, not adj. to a metro) 2,536,939 48,781 52.0 Alabama 4,747,424 50,645 93.7 Appalachian Alabama 3,043,430 25,763 118.1 Non-Appalachian Alabama 1,703,994 24,882 68.5 Georgia 9,600,612 57,513 166.9 Appalachian Georgia 2,899,705 11,378 254.9 Non-Appalachian Georgia 6,700,907 46,135 145.2 Kentucky 4,316,040 39,486 109.3 Appalachian Kentucky 1,184,118 18,231 65.0 Non-Appalachian Kentucky 3,131,922 21,256 147.3 Maryland 5,736,545 9,707 591.0 Appalachian Maryland 252,034 1,529 164.8 Non-Appalachian Maryland 5,484,511 8,178 670.6 Mississippi 2,956,700 46,923 63.0 Appalachian Mississippi 627,703 12,400 50.6 Non-Appalachian Mississippi 2,328,997 34,523 67.5 New York 19,302,448 47,126 409.6 Appalachian New York 1,066,767 11,681 91.3 Non-Appalachian New York 18,235,681 35,445 514.5 North Carolina 9,418,736 48,618 193.7 Appalachian North Carolina 1,686,926 11,887 141.9 Non-Appalachian North Carolina 7,731,810 36,731 210.5 Ohio 11,525,536 40,861 282.1 Appalachian Ohio 2,043,794 15,978 127.9 Non-Appalachian Ohio 9,481,742 24,882 381.1 Pennsylvania 12,660,739 44,743 283.0 Appalachian Pennsylvania 5,790,556 36,444 158.9 Non-Appalachian Pennsylvania 6,870,183 8,298 827.9 South Carolina 4,575,864 30,061 152.2 Appalachian South Carolina 1,160,395 3,824 303.5 Non-Appalachian South Carolina 3,415,469 26,237 130.2 Tennessee 6,297,991 41,235 152.7 Appalachian Tennessee 2,768,286 20,119 137.6 Non-Appalachian Tennessee 3,529,705 21,116 167.2 Virginia 7,926,192 39,490 200.7 Appalachian Virginia 768,548 11,179 68.7 Non-Appalachian Virginia 7,157,644 28,311 252.8 West Virginia (entire state) 1,846,372 24,038 76.8 Data Source: U.S. Census Bureau, 2007-2011 American Community Survey. 4 Figure 1.1: Population Distribution in the Appalachian Region, 2007-2011 Of the 306.6 million persons in the United States during the period from 2007-2011, 25.1 million lived in the Appalachian region. Yet the population of the region’s 420 counties varied greatly. On one hand, two-thirds of the counties had populations of fewer than 50,000 people, and 125 counties had fewer than 20,000 residents. On the other hand, pockets of the Appalachian population lived in large and mid-sized metropolitan areas, including Pittsburgh, Birmingham, and the Atlanta suburbs. Allegheny County, Pa. (where Pittsburgh is located) had 1.2 million residents. It is important to note that the Appalachian population has continued to grow: the latest population estimates indicate the region had 25.3 million residents in 2011 (out of 311.6 million Americans nationwide), compared to 25.2 million in the 2010 Census. 5 Figure 1.2: Population per Square Mile of Land Area in the Appalachian Region, 2007-2011 While Appalachia’s population density was noticeably greater than the United States as a whole over the 2007-2011 period, only two-fifths of the region’s counties had population concentrations at or above the national average. Most of the high-density counties were in metropolitan areas, both large (Pittsburgh, Birmingham, suburban Atlanta) and small (Winston-Salem, N.C.; Knoxville, Tenn.). 6 CHAPTER 2: AGE Table 2.1: Population in the Appalachian Region by Age Group, 2007-2011 Total Percent of Population Median Age Population by Age Group Population, Under Ages Ages Ages 65 (Years) 2007-2011 Age 18 18-24 25-64 and over United States 306,603,772 24.2 10.0 53.0 12.9 37.0 Appalachian Region 25,138,634 22.6 9.7 52.8 15.0 39.6 Subregions Northern Appalachia 8,386,003 21.1 10.0 52.2 16.7 41.4 North Central Appalachia 2,414,961 22.0 9.6 53.2 15.2 40.1 Central Appalachia 1,916,690 22.4 8.7 54.0 14.9 40.2 South Central Appalachia 4,689,747 21.5 9.8 52.6 16.1 40.5 Southern Appalachia 7,731,233 25.0 9.5 53.1 12.4 36.9 County Types Large Metros (pop. 1 million +) 5,739,321 24.0 8.7 54.1 13.2 38.4 Small Metros (pop. <1 million) 10,131,903 22.1 10.5 52.5 15.0 39.3 Nonmetro, Adjacent to Large Metros 1,694,488 23.0 9.8 51.8 15.4 40.1 Nonmetro, Adjacent to Small Metros 5,035,983 21.8 9.3 52.5 16.3 41.0 Rural (nonmetro, not adj. to a metro) 2,536,939 22.6 9.1 52.3 16.0 40.5 Alabama 4,747,424 23.8 10.1 52.5 13.6 37.7 Appalachian Alabama 3,043,430 23.5 9.7 53.0 13.7 38.0 Non-Appalachian Alabama 1,703,994 24.4 10.6 51.4 13.6 37.0 Georgia 9,600,612 25.8 10.1 53.6 10.5 35.2 Appalachian Georgia 2,899,705 27.1 8.6 53.9 10.3 35.7 Non-Appalachian Georgia 6,700,907 25.2 10.7 53.5 10.5 34.9 Kentucky 4,316,040 23.7 9.6 53.5 13.2 37.8 Appalachian Kentucky 1,184,118 22.9 9.2 53.6 14.3 39.3 Non-Appalachian Kentucky 3,131,922 23.9 9.7 53.5 12.8 37.3 Maryland 5,736,545 23.6 9.6 54.6 12.1 37.8 Appalachian Maryland 252,034 21.4 9.8 53.1 15.6 40.2 Non-Appalachian Maryland 5,484,511 23.7 9.6 54.7 11.9 37.6 Mississippi 2,956,700 25.6 10.4 51.3 12.7 35.9 Appalachian Mississippi 627,703 24.8 10.8 50.5 14.0 36.9 Non-Appalachian Mississippi 2,328,997 25.8 10.3 51.6 12.3 35.7 New York 19,302,448 22.5 10.1 53.9 13.4 37.8 Appalachian New York 1,066,767 21.3 12.8 50.4 15.5 39.7 Non-Appalachian New York 18,235,681 22.6 10.0 54.1 13.3 37.7 North Carolina 9,418,736 24.0 9.8 53.4 12.8 37.3 Appalachian North Carolina 1,686,926 21.6 9.1 52.7 16.6 41.1 Non-Appalachian North Carolina 7,731,810 24.5 10.0 53.5 12.0 36.4 Ohio 11,525,536 23.8 9.5 52.8 13.9 38.5 Appalachian Ohio 2,043,794 23.2 9.0 52.4 15.5 40.2 Non-Appalachian Ohio 9,481,742 23.9 9.6 52.8 13.6 38.1 Pennsylvania 12,660,739 22.1 9.8 52.7 15.4 39.9 Appalachian Pennsylvania 5,790,556 20.7 9.9 52.4 16.9 41.7 Non-Appalachian Pennsylvania 6,870,183 23.3 9.8 52.8 14.0 38.4 South Carolina 4,575,864 23.5 10.3 52.8 13.5 37.7 Appalachian South Carolina 1,160,395 23.7 10.2 52.5 13.6 37.8 Non-Appalachian South Carolina 3,415,469 23.4 10.3 52.9 13.4 37.6 Tennessee 6,297,991 23.7 9.5 53.5 13.3 37.8 Appalachian Tennessee 2,768,286 22.0 9.3 53.1 15.7 40.3 Non-Appalachian Tennessee 3,529,705 25.0 9.8 53.8 11.4 35.9 Virginia 7,926,192 23.3 10.1 54.6 12.1 37.3 Appalachian Virginia 768,548 19.6 11.8 52.0 16.6 41.0 Non-Appalachian Virginia 7,157,644 23.7 9.9 54.8 11.6 36.9 West Virginia (entire state) 1,846,372 21.0 9.2 53.8 15.9 41.1 Data Source: U.S. Census Bureau, 2007-2011 American Community Survey. 7 Figure 2.1: Percent of Population in the Appalachian Region Under Age 18, 2007-2011 During the 2007-2011 period, the share of children and youth in the Appalachian population was slightly below the national average of 24 percent. And the percentage actually fell below 20 percent in one-sixth of the region’s counties (mostly outside metropolitan areas). Yet in another one-fifth of the counties, the proportion under age 18 matched or exceeded the national average. Most of these were in southern Appalachia—the only subregion where the under-18 share exceeded the national average. 8 Figure 2.2: Percent of Population in the Appalachian Region Ages 18 to 24, 2007-2011 The share of young adults (ages 18 to 24) in Appalachia roughly equaled the national average in the 2007-2011 period. Yet there also were great variations within the region. For example, persons in this age group made up at least 15 percent of the population in 22 counties—most of which house colleges and universities. In contrast, 18-to-24- year-olds made up less than 7.5 percent of the population in 112 Appalachian counties. Of the counties in this latter group, 81 were outside metropolitan areas, suggesting a possible lack of opportunities in these communities for youth making the transition to adulthood. 9