A Distressing Story

This week, the Economic Innovation Group issued its “Distressed Communities Index,” which measures “seven well-being metrics” by zip codes, cities, counties, congressional districts, and states.

You know where this is headed.

New Mexico did poorly on the index. Some locales fared worse than others, but overall, the state’s performance was abysmal — sixth in the share of population living in distressed zip codes.

Four of our five neighbors beat us on high-school graduation. New Mexico tied with Arizona for the percentage of adults not currently employed, with Oklahoma, Texas, Utah, and Colorado doing better. All five beat us in percentage change of people employed and percentage change in the number of business establishments.

A special session for real economic-development policies, please?