Fiscal strength doesn’t guarantee public goods delivery, U.S. study finds

A recent U.S. study reveals that fiscal strength does not guarantee the delivery of public goods, despite strong partisan and regional patterns in three key governance pillars: democratic accountability, state capacity, and public goods provision. The research, titled "The Governance Performance of the Fifty States: The U.S. Berggruen Governance Index," was presented at Columbia University in New York.

The findings highlight that the three governance dimensions often run counter to each other, rather than correlating as expected. For instance, Massachusetts, with high per capita incomes, ranks third in public goods provision but 49th in state capacity. Conversely, Wyoming, reliant on mining and agriculture, ranks 36th in public goods but first in state capacity.

Public goods provision, encompassing quality-of-life metrics and infrastructure, shows four top performers in the Northeast, while the bottom seven are in the South. Democratic accountability, including election procedures and civil society activity, shows the top 12 states scattered across the West, Northeast, and Midwest, with Montana as the highest-ranking state.

The bottom 20 states, all Southern, were all won by Trump in 2024. State capacity, focusing on debt levels and welfare-state delivery, is geographically diverse but shows no Northeastern states among the top 12. The report categorizes states into four groups: 14 fiscally sound and delivering states, 16 strained but delivering states, nine fiscally strong but poorly served states, and 11 low-performing states, all but one of which are Republican.

Economic historian Adam Tooze notes that the lack of large-scale public services in the underperforming states is linked to race, as richer white individuals in these regions resist tax increases for redistributive purposes.