Congrats to Obama, I can't wait until he brings the same prosperity to the country that he brought to Illinois.

Chicago, IL – The failure of the U.S. economy, and there is no nicer way to put it, has been the result of a number of different factors, most of them related to debt and the inability of people and of states to repay what they owe.

That has been a situation that has impacted virtually every household, including state houses, across the country since the crisis first began more than four years ago. Some states have been relatively untouched by the economic nightmare, though all have been affected, while others have been put into serious economic trouble.

The biggest arguably most important trouble state has most certainly been California. Not only has that state suffered perhaps the largest amount of trouble, it is also the largest economy in the country. A failure in California would most certainly be devastating across the nation. Luckily, though, it appears that California is not the worst state in the union. That honour now belongs to Illinois which, following a credit rating downgrade, has been classed as the very worst in the entire United States of America, worse even then Missouri or Oregon.

“Most states will build reserves when the economy is performing well, and that typically provides a cushion when the revenues deteriorate but Illinois has never really carried or accumulated any kind of budgetary reserves,” said Robin Prunty of S&Pwhich issued the downgrade.

The slip to A minus actually puts the state on par with California but that state has a positive outlook and no one is positive about Illinois.

The downgrade will mean that taxpayers will end up paying more to fund basic projects because the state has no money and has to borrow to pay for things.

“This is certainly not great, I mean at least for the people in Illinois. It really doesn’t matter all that much to people outside the state to be honest. It may be a mild concern for some of them but in general I’m sure most people will not really be affected one way or the other. Still, it’s not a good sign that the economy is improving,” said Scrape TV Economic analyst Michael Santino. “Improvement would certainly be something that would benefit everyone, well mostly everyone. Illinois would certainly benefit because that state does, despite this, have upwards mobility and infrastructure which is something severely lacking in a lot of other places. Still, for now this is clearly the worst state in the Union.”

It’s not clear how the people of the state feel about being called names but they very likely do not appreciate it.

“Someone has to be the worst. It’s just the way things work. If you are going to rank states and people and things then someone has to be on the bottom. This doesn’t mean that Illinois is worthless or not worth having as part of the Union it just means that for right now they are at the bottom of the rankings,” continued Santino. “That sucks but it’s nobody’s fault but theirs. It’s really not, say, North Dakota’s fault that they aren’t as bad as Illinois. It’s illinois’ fault that they aren’t better than North Dakota which, frankly, should be something pretty easy to accomplish. I mean seriously.”

It’s not clear if the embarrassment will motivate the state to do better anytime soon.

http://scrapetv.com/News/News%20Pages/usa/pages-9/Illinois-now-the-worst-state-in-the-Union-following-credit-downgrade-Scrape-TV-The-World-on-your-side-2013-01-27.html