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How Much State Debt Rests on Your Shoulders?

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The following “snowball” shows state debt per person in each state:
How Much State Debt Rests on Your Shoulders?

How Much State Debt Rests on Your Shoulders?

We’ve previously shown the federal government debt incurred per person in each country, but today’s infographic drills down to the state level.

How much state debt is there per person, and why is there such a wide discrepancy between states like Massachusetts ($11,000 per person) and Nebraska ($1,000 per person)?

The Snowball of State Debt

Today’s infographic from HowMuch.net, a cost information site, organizes states by debt per capita using a snowball-like effect.

The five states at the center of the snowball with the highest debt per capita are Massachusetts ($11,000), Connecticut ($9,200), Rhode Island ($8,900), Alaska ($8,200), and New Jersey ($7,400).

On the other end of the spectrum are the five states with the lowest state debt per capita: Tennessee ($900), Nebraska ($1,000), Nevada ($1,200), Georgia ($1,300), and Arkansas ($1,500).

While it is reasonable to expect big differences in debt per capita between countries, seeing an interstate difference of up to 10x per person seems a bit perplexing at face value. Let’s see if we can dig a little deeper on what accounts for these differences.

The Curious Case of Massachusetts

Currently, Massachusetts holds the title of the highest state debt per capita, as well as ranking #2 in terms of state debt as a percentage of GDP (14.0%). It’s also worth noting that debt analysts at S&P have recently lowered the outlook on state bonds from stable to negative.

Meanwhile, The Mercatus Center ranked Massachusetts in 49th place in their 2016 State Fiscal Rankings. (The only state to fare worse was Connecticut.)

Mercatus snapshot for Massachusetts

Like other old and urban states, Massachusetts requires significant investments to repair aging roads, schools, and other infrastructure. For many fiscal analysts, however, it is the gap in unfunded liabilities that is the long-term concern.

Forbes notes that unfunded liabilities from public pensions are probably the biggest fiscal problem facing state governments today, and Massachusetts is no exception. Unfunded liabilities in the state are pegged at $94.45 billion with other postemployment benefits (OPEB) at $15.38 billion, and eventually these are issues that will have to be dealt with.

Healthier Budgets

What does a healthier state budget look like? The best examples can be found in the Midwest.

Here’s Nebraska, which has about $1,000 of debt per person:

Mercatus snapshot for Nebraska

Nebraska exhibits strong fiscal health across all categories. On a cash basis, Nebraska has between 3.81 and 5.02 times the cash needed to cover short-term liabilities. Revenues exceed expenses by 7 percent, producing a surplus of $294 per capita.

– Mercatus Center at George Mason University

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Will Tesla Lose Its Spot in the Magnificent Seven?

We visualize the recent performance of the Magnificent Seven stocks, uncovering a clear divergence between the group’s top and bottom names.

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Will Tesla Lose Its Spot in the Magnificent Seven?

This was originally posted on our Voronoi app. Download the app for free on iOS or Android and discover incredible data-driven charts from a variety of trusted sources.

In this graphic, we visualize the year-to-date (YTD) performance of the “Magnificent Seven”, a leading group of U.S. tech stocks that gained prominence in 2023 as the replacement of FAANG stocks.

All figures are as of March 12, 2024, and are listed in the table below.

RankCompanyYTD Change (%)
1Nvidia90.8
2Meta44.3
3Amazon16.9
4Microsoft12
5Google0.2
6Apple-6.7
7Tesla-28.5

From these numbers, we can see a clear divergence in performance across the group.

Nvidia and Meta Lead

Nvidia is the main hero of this show, setting new all-time highs seemingly every week. The chipmaker is currently the world’s third most valuable company, with a valuation of around $2.2 trillion. This puts it very close to Apple, which is currently valued at $2.7 trillion.

The second best performer of the Magnificent Seven has been Meta, which recently re-entered the trillion dollar club after falling out of favor in 2022. The company saw a massive one-day gain of $197 billion on Feb 2, 2024.

Apple and Tesla in the Red

Tesla has lost over a quarter of its value YTD as EV hype continues to fizzle out. Other pure play EV stocks like Rivian and Lucid are also down significantly in 2024.

Meanwhile, Apple shares have struggled due to weakening demand for its products in China, as well as the company’s lack of progress in the artificial intelligence (AI) space.

Investors may have also been disappointed to hear that Apple’s electric car project, which started a decade ago, has been scrapped.

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