Iowa Ranks As State With The Worst Economy In 2025

In this economy, that's legendary status.

All of us know the economy sucks lately. Even if you've been living under a rock, you're struggling to pay for it. So to be named the state with the worst economy in 2025 is some kind of achievement, and that's where Iowa is at.

WalletHub released their stats for the Best & Worst State Economies in 2025. To come up with this, they divided metrics into 3 main categories:

• Economic Activity
  • Change in GPD
  • Share of fast-growing firms
  • State gross public debt as percent of GPD
  • Exports per capita
  • Startup activity
• Economic Health
  • Unemployment rate
  • Underemployment rate
  • Change in non-farm payrolls
  • Change in total civilian labor force
  • Increase in ratio of full-time jobs to part-time jobs
  • Median annual household income adjusted for cost of living
  • Growth in state personal income
  • Government surplus/Deficit per capita
  • Unfunded public pension plans per capita
  • Share of uninsured population
  • Share of population in poverty
  • Foreclosure rate
  • Growth in number of businesses
  • Fiscal health
  • Building permit activity
  • Average educational attainments of recent immigrants
  • Average educational attainments of recent U.S. migrants from out of state
• Innovation potential
  • Share of jobs in high-tech industries
  • Share of jobs STEM employment
  • Independent inventor patents per 1,000 working-age population
  • Industry R&D investment amount per total civilian employed population
  • Non-industry R&D investment amount as share of GPD
  • Entrepreneurial activity

Iowa's Not Doing So Good

Yep Iowa came in dead last in the list of best state economies in 2025. We're 51st.

Here were our scores- total: 31.61. Economic activity rank: 51. Economic health rank: 48. Innovation potential rank: 29.

So we have potential.

As for the rest of the Midwest, Illinois came in at #40, Wisconsin ranked #29, and Indiana (the highest-ranking Midwestern state) was #22.

In case you're wondering, Massachusetts ranked as the state with the best economy this year.