How Healthy Are Your State's Finances?

After more than a year of debating federal tax cuts, a return to trillion dollar deficits, and the fiscal condition of the federal government, you might think there’s not much more to say about fiscal solvency in the US. Of course, for those who follow state policy issues, there is still plenty to discuss spread out among 50 state government budgets.

In fact, the Mercatus Center just released its fifth and final study of the fiscal condition of all 50 states. The study ranks each state according to fiscal health and discusses trends from a decade’s worth of data.

Here to dive into that data, what it means for states, and what a path forward might look like are the study’s authors:

• Eileen Norcross, Vice President of Policy Research here at Mercatus, and an expert on state policy issues.
• Co-author, Olivia Gonzalez is a Research Associate at Mercatus, and is the author of an ongoing series of articles diving into some of the interesting stories she discovered while conducting this research.

Click here to learn more about the Fiscal Rankings study and where your state stands. 

To follow Olivia's essay series on the study, visit The Bridge.

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Join us for #econoween this fall by carving a pumpkin with your favorite econ stencil and enter it in our contest. Tweet us @mercatus using the hashtag #econoween to submit your pumpkin carving masterpiece. The winner will receive a prize of over $100 worth of free books! You can find the stencils and contest details here.

Interested in Tyler Cowen's new book Stubborn Attachments? It's available for purchase here from Stripe Press.

Questions, comments, episode ideas? Email Chad at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter @ChadMReese.

Today's What's on Tap beverage comes to us from DuClaw Brewing in Baltimore, Maryland.