Bloomberg website provides another depressing look at New Mexico’s economy

A friend of mine passed along this article about the economic struggles of prostitutes in Nevada’s legal brothels. Not because of any specific interest in the “world’s oldest profession,” but because of one specific line in the story: “Since the last quarter of 2007, the state’s (Nevada’s) economic health has declined 46 percent, according to the Bloomberg Economic Evaluation of States. That’s second-worst in the nation behind New Mexico.”

That led me to wonder, what is this “Bloomberg Economic Evaluation of States and why does our fair state perform so poorly?” Well, I found the “BEES” and for New Mexico, it is NOT the “bee’s knees.” According to Bloomberg, the BEES measures (for 1Q of 1995 to 4Q of 2011):

Mortgage Percent Delinquent: The percentage of first mortgage loans secured by one to four unit residences that are 90+ days delinquent or in the process of foreclosure.

State Personal Income: Total income of all persons residing in the state from all sources.

Tax Revenue: The Quarterly Summary of State and Local Government Tax Revenue provides quarterly estimates of detailed tax revenue data for individual states.

Employment: Total number of employees in the state in non-farm sectors.

Home Prices: Average price of repeat sales or refinancing of single family homes within the state.

Bloomberg State Stock Index: Measures the performance of publicly traded companies that are primarily domiciled in a specific state. Index is market cap weighted stock index.

The tool is nice because you can manipulate the measurement over time going back to 1995. If you take it from Q1 1995 to Q4 2001, New Mexico is 51st. And, while we had some reasonable success to the point of being first in the entire index during the tax-cutting portion of Bill Richardson’s Administration, the floor fell out starting in 2009 putting us in 50th or 51st ever since (through 4Q of 2011). Check it all out for yourself here.

HT: Tyson Foutz