Find Your State’s Analytical Tools to Build Fiscal Sustainability

For state government budgets to stay on a sustainable path, policymakers must maintain a long-term perspective, informed by high-quality data and analysis. In a 2023 report, “Tools for Sustainable State Budgeting,” The Pew Charitable Trusts identified and defined two analytical tools—long-term budget assessments and budget stress tests—that can help policymakers ensure that today’s revenue and spending decisions do not cause budget problems in the future.

Based on that report, Pew created a database to track the long-term budget assessments and budget stress tests conducted by states throughout the country since 2018. (See Figure 1.) Lawmakers can use the information and reports collected here to find the latest analysis of their state’s fiscal outlook; study authors can learn from studies published in other states to develop or refine their own analyses; and researchers can glean insights on states’ fiscal conditions.

The database comprises all long-term assessments and stress tests published since July 1, 2023. Analyses issued before that date are also included if they are the most recent study of their type produced by a state. For example, a New York stress test from 2021 is included because New York has not published a stress test since.

Pew plans to update the database at least twice a year and welcomes suggestions of analyses that may meet its definitions of long-term budget assessments and budget stress tests but are not currently included.