It’s time for a reality check.

For years Ashtabula County residents have been told things are going great in the local economy, bolstered by a plethora of win-win situations and abundant resources. Most working folks, however, scratch their heads and wonder if the county’s cheerleaders are talking about the same place where they live and work.

The truth is in the numbers. Ashtabula County has:

n The lowest per capita, per-family and per-household incomes of any Ohio county on the lakeshore. In 1969, the county ranked 46th in the state in median household income; by 1995, it had fallen to 66th;

A per capita that has consistently trailed that of the state and nation, and the gap is widening. In 1993, it was at 80 percent of the U.S.; by 2005, it had fallen to 74 percent;

The highest poverty rate of the same region;

The highest percentage of births paid for by Medicaid, 48.2 percent, of any lakeshore county;

The highest percentage of Medicaid payments to personal income, 6 percent, of any county north of Appalachian Ohio;

A rising unemployment rate – 8 percent in January, up from 7.5 in December 2007;

The region’s lowest percentage of residents with a bachelor’s degree or higher, a figure lower than the state of West Virginia, which ranks last in the nation.

Drive west to neighboring Lake County, and the per capita personal income is nearly $8,000 more, the median sale price of a house double that of one in Ashtabula County, 22.7 percent of the adults 25 and older have a bachelor’s degree, and the unemployment rate is nearly two points lower.

Why? Why must Ashtabula County trail the rest of the region, particularly in per capita income?

“That’s the $64,000 question,” says Patrick Arcaro, director of the Department of Job and Family Services for Ashtabula County. “The story I got is that when Route 11 was built, everybody from West Virginia took it north because they heard that the lake was a beautiful place to live. If you drive down Route 11, that’s where all the poverty is — all the way down to West Virginia.”

Blaming our county’s problems on in-migration from Appalachia may be a convenient, if not urban-legend explanation, but it’s also one sure to stir strong emotions among those who migrated here in the 1950s, not for a handout but the opportunity to work.

Sixty years later, however, this Ashtabula County/ Appalachia-connection mentality has resurfaced in the efforts of Rep. Steven LaTourette, R-Bainbridge Township. In 2003, LaTourette introduced a bill that would add Ashtabula, Mahoning and Trumbull counties to the Appalachian Regional Commission. H.B. 799 is before the U.S. Senate, and LaTourette hopes action will be taken this session.