A State Dossier is one page per U.S. state and the District of Columbia, public at palanor.com/states, signed in under States in the menu, and in your organization's workspace. Each page is rebuilt every night; charts redraw from the latest data whenever you open them.
What is on a page
- The latest read. Sentences built from stored readings only: population, real GDP and its growth, unemployment, payroll growth, income per person, median household income and home prices.
- The headline series. Unemployment against the U.S. rate, payroll growth, GDP growth, income per person, home prices, migration, marriage and divorce, electricity prices, the generation mix, federal awards per resident, overdose deaths and S&P 500 mentions, each a live chart.
- State Posture and the Future-Ready Workforce composite, described below.
- Make-up. What the economy makes (GDP by industry, BEA), where people work (payrolls by industry, BLS CES; jobs and pay by industry, BLS QCEW), what they do (jobs by occupation group, BLS OEWS) and how the state makes its electricity (EIA), each beside an earlier year.
- Metro areas whose first-named state is this one, with population and growth (Census estimates). Metro pages are not part of Palanor; metro population growth is the one metro dataset, on state pages and in the Library chart The Fastest-Growing Metro Areas.
- How often S&P 500 companies name the state on earnings calls and in 10-K risk factors, where the series passed its pre-registered rules (below).
- Companies run from the state. Listed companies whose SEC filings give a business address there, and private companies whose latest Form D names it as their principal place of business. Where a company is incorporated (often Delaware) does not count.
- Every series about the state, grouped by theme, with the latest reading, its date and its source.
State Posture
The same frame as Country Posture: Momentum (growth, payrolls, unemployment, income, home prices), Resilience (industry diversity, the share of jobs in mining, construction and manufacturing, income against the U.S., poverty, government jobs) and Pressure (three-year home-price growth, home prices against income, labour-market tightness, payroll acceleration, electricity prices). Each input is read against the state's own last 30 years and against the other states that year. It describes; it never ranks states.
The method and its back-test were committed before any data was loaded: an axis shows a score only if, in both halves of the record (up to 2007, and 2008–2023), it beats an AUC of 0.60 and two simple baselines at telling which states would see a recession (real GDP falling) or an unemployment rise of a point or more in the next two years. An axis that does not pass shows its inputs and the reason. palanor.com/states/posture prints the latest results.
Future-Ready Workforce
A Palanor composite of six published measures: jobs in computing, engineering and science occupations (25%), jobs in information and professional, scientific and technical services (20%), five-year wage growth (10%), adults with a bachelor's degree (15%), science and engineering degrees per young person (15%) and R&D as a share of GDP (15%). Each becomes the state's percentile among the states; the composite is their weighted mean, 0 to 100, with bands Building, Established and Deep. It was fixed in advance together with a simulation it must pass before it is shown (random weightings, no single input explaining most of it, year-to-year stability, coverage). If it fails, each state shows the six inputs and no composite.
S&P 500 mentions of a state
Word lists and exclusions (companies, rivers, teams and universities named after a state; "Washington" alone, which usually means the federal government; Delaware in 10-Ks, where it is incorporation boilerplate) were committed before counting. A state's series is published only when at least 2% of companies named it on average from 2022 to 2025 and a hand check of 20 random matches found at least 18 meant the state itself. 27 series passed on 2026-10-21; the rest are not shown.
The states map
Colour the states by GDP growth, unemployment, job growth, income, migration, population growth, home prices, electricity prices, renewables, the Future-Ready Workforce composite or a State Posture stage (each layer only where published). Hover for a state's card, click to open its Dossier; states without a reading are grey; the table view lists every value with its date. On the World view, click the United States (or choose U.S. states) to see the same map inside the globe page.
Comparing states
Pick two to five states at palanor.com/states/compare. The table shows the latest reading of each measure on the same definition in every state, with its date; small-multiple charts show the history. The address carries your pick, so you can share it. The CSV holds only open-licence series. In the command bar, type compare texas california (or tx ca vs) to open a comparison.
Your state
Under Settings → Preferences (as Me) or Settings → Numen (your workspace), United States → your state sets the state the States pages open on.
Sources
U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Census Bureau (population estimates, American Community Survey, state tax collections, building permits through FRED), Federal Housing Finance Agency, Energy Information Administration, USAspending.gov, CDC National Center for Health Statistics, USPTO, NSF National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics, SBIR.gov and SEC EDGAR, all public domain. Palanor calculations (rates, shares, per-resident figures, composites) are labelled on each series. The Philadelphia Fed's state indexes are not used: their licence is non-commercial.
Related: [Country Dossier](/help/modules/country-dossier) · [World view](/help/modules/world-view) · [Charts](/help/modules/charts)