(Editorial - Graphic Illustration - MetroCreativeConnection)

One of elected officials’ favorite tricks is to drag out the line “But are you better off than you were (insert politically beneficial timeframe here)?” It gets people thinking: Am I better off?

For West Virginians living in a state that hopes to win an economic “Backyard Brawl,” the answer may very well be “no.”

But according to WalletHub’s “States with the Most People in Financial Distress,” the Mountain State is ranked 45th In this case, that’s a good thing.

West Virginia’s total score was 33.17. For comparison, the least distressed folks were in Hawaii, which scored 19.99; but the most distressed were in Texas, which scored 62.45.

West Virginia was 44th for credit score, 25th for people with accounts in distress, 24th for average number of accounts in distress, 44th for change in bankruptcy filings between March 2024 and March 2025, 32nd for “debt” search interest index and 34th for “loans” search interest index.

In terms of the score in the economic Backyard Brawl (and again, first place is the MOST distressed in this study), Kentucky ranks 9th, Maryland ranks 42nd, Ohio ranks 16th, Pennsylvania ranks 32nd and Virginia ranks 18th.

“Measuring the share of residents in financial distress is a good way to take the pulse of a state and see whether people are generally thriving or having trouble making ends meet,” said analyst Chip Lupo. “When you combine data about people delaying payments with other metrics like bankruptcy filings and credit score changes, it paints a good picture of the overall economic trends of a state.”

Not too shabby, then, for West Virginia, but the key word there was “trend.” Whether Mountain State residents continue to feel less financial distress and perform even better in the rankings a year from now is another story. (As is the accuracy of relying on internet search terms in a state with a rural, aging population that has less internet access than much of the rest of the country.)

Still, there’s something to build on here. It will be up to those elected officials who always seem to be concerned in even-numbered years about how well we’re doing to decide whether they want to make the hard decisions it might take to keep our momentum going in the right direction.