State Policy Reports

For those interested in subscribing to State Policy Reports, a recent issue is available for review:

November 2021, Volume 39, Issue 22

Mapping and Bridging the Digital Divide Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, Congress was working to bridge the digital divide, but its efforts have accelerated.

Wrenches in the Census A report from the Urban Institute attempts to quantify the accuracy and fairness of the 2020 decennial census.

Annual indices are also available:

June 2024, Volume 42, Issue 12

Index of State Economic Momentum

The Index of State Economic Momentum ranks states based on their most recent performance in three key measures of economic vitality: personal income growth, employment growth, and population growth. Reports updates the index each quarter. In this update, South Carolina held onto the top spot, while West Virginia most closely approximated the national average economic performance.

June 2024, Volume 42, Issue 11

Elementary and Secondary Education Finances in FY 2022

The Census Bureau recently released state details on fiscal year (FY) 2022 finances for elementary and secondary education. They highlight big spending differences among the states and the outsized role of property taxes in school finance.

May 2024, Volume 42, Issue 10

Which State is Most Typical?

A recent Washington Post analysis sought to determine which state most resembles the nation as a whole.

Adjusting Teacher Salaries for Cost-of-Living Differences

Adjusting average teacher salaries to account for differences in the cost of living narrows the gap between the highest- and lowest-ranking states.

May 2024, Volume 42, Issue 9

Pondering the Future of State-Federal Fiscal Relations

The last four years in state-federal fiscal relations have been unprecedented, but those days are over. What factors will inform these relations in the coming years, including the prospects for fiscal assistance should a recession occur?

April 2024, Volume 42, Issue 8

The State-Federal Balance of Payments in 2022

A perennial area of interest among observers of state-federal fiscal relations is whether a given state is a net donor or net recipient in its terms of trade with the federal government. Every state was a net recipient in federal fiscal year 2021, but the latest report from New York’s Office of the State Comptroller shows that things have started to shift back to how they were pre-pandemic.

April 2024, Volume 42, Issue 7