Economic Stress Report for October 2009

Once again we've gathered sufficient data to provide an update on the Economic Stress Report. According to our analysis method, the following are the top ten States on our list of economically stressed states. We present them here in order of highest to lowest severity:

1. South Dakota
2. Vermont
3. Ohio
4. Arizona
5. Kansas
6. Nevada (new to list)
7. New Hampshire (new to list)
8. Connecticut (new to list)
9. West Virginia (down from #8)
10. Indiana

The big, pleasant surprise for us in this report is that the top five states are unchanged from last report. New additions to the second decile are: Nevada (up from #11 of last report); New Hampshire and Connecticut (both not even on the 'watch list' of last report!). Falling out of the second decile are Montana (down to #11); Washington (down to #12); and New York (down to #13).

The consistency of the top states gives us hope our methodology is fairly sound as more data pours in. That several of these states are on our list should be no surprise to anyone - Ohio, Arizona, Nevada, and Indiana. Perhaps more remarkable is that the famous basket-case of California is missing. We don't think the absence of the Golden State in our stress measure is in any way a positive reflection on California's economy. Rather, we believe that worse conditions lie elsewhere under the radar of widespread public attention.