The State of the States 2010

Two years after the nation fell into the longest recession since the 1930s, states still are groping to find the bottom of this grueling fiscal crisis amid double-digit unemployment, historic revenue drops and predictions of at least a couple more years of eye-popping budget deficits.

But equally critical at the troubled start of this decade is a need to pay attention to the choices lawmakers and voters are about to make that will affect states' fiscal well-being in the long term.

In State of the States 2010, the Pew Center on the States takes a nonpartisan, analytical look at forces already at work with the potential to reshape state government in lasting ways. Addressing “How the recession might change states,” the publication raises intriguing questions that have yet to play out.