Excerpt from the report Highlights: Appalachia has a disproportionate share of the Nation's unemployed workers and low-income families. However, the economy of the region is neither entirely nor uniformly "depressed". Considerable variation exists among subareas of the region in the number and percent of persons unemployed, and of families with incomes below $3,000. The variation reflects in part recent differential growth rates among subareas in employment and population. Some local economies have expanded rapidly, some slowly, and others have contracted precipitously.