if you own a software company that employs 100 people, you are supporting 139 people in the state on that other list that work for the government or are welfare recipients or pensioners. the other factor they looked at was credit worthiness. they took a statement, what is their debt load for paying for all of this. what is the business climate like. how many businesses are leaving the state because of regulation. home values. they also looked at the unemployment rate. that's the credit worthiness. the death spiral states had a ratio of takers to makers greater than one. so 100 people supporting 139 others or they were in the bottom half of credit worthiness. there were 11 states that came out with bad factors on both sides. surprisingly. new mexico was at the bottom of the list. they had 153 takers per 100