The news is far worse in Nevada, the weakest state in the standings, with a score of negative 9.489 points. Nevada’s unemployment rate has soared to 12 percent, its job base has shrunk by 6.2 percent since mid-2008, and its home values have plummeted 31.1 percent during the same span.

Michigan ranks next to last in economic strength, followed by Arizona, Florida, and California. These four states all lost more than 5 percent of their jobs during the past year. Their wage levels and home values have also dropped substantially.

The population gap between America’s strongest and weakest states is striking. Four of the 10 strongholds have fewer than a million residents, but each of the 10 weaklings has more than 2.7 million people.

The cumulative population of the top-10 states is 42 million, with No. 10 Texas (25 million) accounting for more than half of that total. The bottom-10 states, taken as a group, are nearly three times as large with 118 million residents.

The following is a rundown of the economic climate in the nation’s four major regions:

East: Only two Eastern entries are in the top 10: the District of Columbia (fifth) and West Virginia (seventh). The latter is a particular surprise, since West Virginia can usually be found at the tail end of the economic standings. But its wages are up 5.2 percent in the past year, a growth rate that most states would envy. Connecticut (42nd) is the weakest state in the East.

South: Southern states became accustomed to prosperity during the past quarter-century. A few—not the usual suspects—are still doing reasonably well: Louisiana (second), Oklahoma (third), and Arkansas (eighth). At the bottom of the regional list is Florida (48th), which is saddled with double-digit unemployment and a decline of 22.5 percent in home values during the past 12 months.

Midwest: The western tier of Midwestern states is currently the strongest, consisting of North Dakota (first), South Dakota (fourth), Nebraska (ninth), and Kansas (21st). The economy gets weaker as you move east through the region, culminating in Ohio (46th) and Michigan (50th). The latter has an unemployment rate of 15.2 percent, the worst in any state since 1984.

West: Alaska (sixth) didn’t add any jobs during the past year, but it didn’t lose any, either. (North Dakota is the only state anywhere in America with a better rate of job growth.) That somewhat upbeat news, however, is offset by the collapses in Nevada (51st), Arizona (49th), California (47th), and Oregon (44th). All four of those states have lost more than 5 percent of their jobs since mid-2008.