Moody’s says 22 states, including WV, are in or near a recession

By Stephen Baldwin, RealWV

With 22 of the nation’s states struggling economically, Mark Zandi of Moody’s Analytics says the entire nation is “on the edge of recession.”

Zandi is the Chief Economist for Moody’s, an American financial services company best-known for providing credit ratings. His national assessment is based on state-level data.

“States making up nearly a third of U.S. GDP are either in or at high risk of recession, another third are just holding steady, and the remaining third are growing,” says Zandi.

He says 22 states are already in a recession or are on the verge of it. They include, in order from strongest to weakest: Wyoming, Montana, Minnesota, Mississippi, Kansas, Massachusetts, Washington, Georgia, New Hampshire, Maryland, Rhode Island, Illinois, Delaware, Virginia, Oregon, Connecticut, South Dakota, New Jersey, Maine, Iowa, West Virginia, District of Columbia.

He says 13 states are holding steady: Missouri, Ohio, Hawaii, New Mexico, Alaska, New York, Vermont, Arkansas, California, Tennessee, Nevada, Colorado, Michigan.

And finally, 16 states are growing: South Carolina, Idaho, Texas, Oklahoma, North Carolina, Alabama, Kentucky, Florida, Nebraska, Indiana, Louisiana, North Dakota, Arizona, Pennsylvania, Utah, Wisconsin.

Zandi points to tariffs, housing, jobs, and manufacturing as the primary drivers of the state-level economic recessions which threaten the national economy.

At a Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute media roundtable in Salt Lake City last week, Zandi warned, “We’re not in a recession, but recession risk is still uncomfortably high.”

Using the metaphor of an airplane in flight, Zandi said the economy is flying at 30,000 feet right now with clear skies. However, he believes one bad thunderstorm could bring the plane down, saying the looming threat of a continued government shutdown is the most immediate factor combined with the continued pressure of tariffs on companies and consumers.

In remarks last week to the Bridges Without Boundaries Business Summit last week, Dr. John Deskins, an economist at West Virginia University, shared similar concerns saying the state has experienced zero job growth in the last 17 years.

“Our only path forward is inmigration,” Deskins said of the state’s need to reverse population decline and bring in new residents. “People move where they want to live.” Deskins argues policymakers in West Virginia need to give people reasons to want to live here in order to turn the economy around.

Since 2015, the population of West Virginia has declined just over 4% from 1,850,569 to 1,769,979 residents.

Cover photo by Jonathan Eggleston.