Appalachia's report card came in this week. Grab some coffee. It's not all good news.

The Appalachian Regional Commission just dropped its data chartbook — five years of survey numbers on population, age, income, poverty, the whole ledger. Four hundred twenty-three counties, run through the wringer.

Let's start with the money, because that's where it hurts first.

The average Appalachian household pulls in $89,821 a year. The national average is $113,530. Do the math and we're making 79 cents on every dollar the rest of the country makes. Median household income here sits at $66,555. Down the road in the rest of America, it's $80,734.

That's not a gap. That's a canyon.

And it's not spread even. Central Appalachia — eastern Kentucky, southern West Virginia, that stretch — has a median household income of $50,224. Appalachian Kentucky alone comes in even lower, $49,616. Eighteen counties there had average household incomes under $60,000. That's not a typo. That's a paycheck that barely covers a used truck payment and groceries, some months.

Poverty follows the same map. Fourteen-point-three percent of Appalachians live below the poverty line, against 12.5 percent nationally. Doesn't sound like much until you get to Central Appalachia, where it's 21.2 percent. Appalachian Kentucky, 22.4 percent. Nearly one in four.

Kids have it worse. Almost 19 percent of Appalachian children are growing up poor. In 61 counties, that number tops 30 percent — nearly one in three kids in those counties.

Here's the part that'll make you set your coffee down. Poverty among the oldest Appalachians — 65 and up — actually went up since the last survey period. Up almost two full points. Everywhere else in the age brackets, poverty came down some. Grandma and grandpa are the ones losing ground.

Now, before you throw the mug at the wall, there's a sliver of light in here.

Adjusted for inflation, incomes did rise across the region. Median household income climbed 4.3 percent since the last survey window, just a hair behind the national bump of 4.4. Georgia and South Carolina's mountain counties saw the strongest growth — north of 20 percent population increase since 2010, with incomes climbing to match. Poverty dropped a full point regionwide, and fell hardest in Appalachian Kentucky, down more than two points.

So somebody up there is doing something right. It's just not reaching everybody at the same speed.

One more number, because it explains a lot of what you already knew in your gut. Appalachia's median age is 41.2 years, more than two years older than the country as a whole. Three hundred seventy of our 423 counties skew older than the national median. Seventy-four counties are a quarter senior citizens or better.

Some of that's retirees cashing out and buying a cabin with a view. Most of it's the opposite — young folks packing up for Charlotte or Columbus, fewer babies being born, more funerals than birthdays on the church calendar.

Two Appalachias in one chartbook. One's filling up with lake houses and university towns. The other's emptying out, getting older, and getting poorer while it waits.

Full report's up at arc.gov if you want to go county by county. It's a 173 megabyte PDF, so don't try opening it at the Waffle House on your phone data plan. You'll be there till closing.