November 3, 2025

Hi, everyone. This is Taylor St. Germain with ITR Economics. Thanks so much for joining me on this episode of TrendsTalk. We at ITR are your apolitical and unbiased source of economic intelligence.

Today I wanted to check in on the 2030s. It’s been a while since we brought up our 2030 Depression. That hasn’t changed. We are still expecting the 2030s to be as challenging as we expected, really since 2014 when we first started talking about this. The 2030 Depression is still on our minds. It’s still our forecast, but it’s not that far away. We’re almost in 2026 at this point. I wanted to make sure I checked in on the 2030s with you all and shared some ways to prepare.

Today, I wanted to discuss our geographies of opportunity and some of the geographies that we’re concerned with. When I say geographies, I’m really referring to the states we’re most excited about and the states we’re least excited about. It was about a year ago, our president and CEO put together a list of their top 10 states, their bottom 10 states as we evaluated the 2030s. They used 10 factors to determine how these states ranked. I’ll read off those 10 factors to you. The first was tax climate. Second was economic diversity. Then we had unfunded pension liability per capita, state debt per capita, job creation, tax revenue per capita, persons in poverty, persons without health insurance, percent of the population over 65, and then finally, housing affordability. So those were the 10 primary factors that went in to determine these states rankings.

I wanted to share with you the top 10 least risk places to be and the bottom 10 most at risk places to be based on these 10 factors. So let’s start off with the top 10. Let’s start off with the good news. Number one was Utah. And then down the list, we have Georgia, Idaho, South Dakota, Oklahoma, Iowa, Alaska, Nebraska, Colorado, and South Carolina. So those were our top 10 least risk places to be. And again, I share this with you because I know diversifying your business, expanding into new states, new geographies takes time. And I wanted you to have those top 10 so as you’re evaluating your plans for 26 and really the second half of the decade, you have some insight into the least risk places to be.

Now the states that we found that were at the most risk started off with Connecticut, then we had Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Hawaii, New Jersey, New York, Vermont, California, Illinois, and Washington, DC. Now, folks, I’m not saying run from one of these states to the other. There’s going to be opportunities depending on the market, depending on the metro areas that you’re located in, I’m painting this with a broad brush based on those 10 factors. But I think it’s important to consider in your internal planning, especially because, as I mentioned, it’s not that much time before 2030 is really upon us.

Part of our goal of ITR economics as we navigate the second half of the decade will be to continue to prepare you with markets of opportunity, states of opportunity. And if this list changes, of course, you’ll hear from me, you’ll hear from our economists, so that we can best prepare ourselves for 2030. Yes, I know we’re talking about the next depression in the US, but there are major opportunities. There is no such thing as a bad phase of the business cycle, but there’s a big difference when it comes to being prepared for a downturn or unprepared for a downturn. And my goal, our goal at ITR is to make sure you have all the ammunition to flourish during the 2030s rather than be one of those companies or individuals that’s reactive to the 2030s and finding themselves in a tough position.

So we’ll continue to keep you updated with all the good news and insights as we prepare for this next downturn. Hope you found this information helpful. Head over to our website for more on the 2030s. But for now, please like and subscribe to TrendsTalk wherever you listen to your podcasts. And I look forward to seeing you all in the next one. Thanks so much and take care for now.