Half of States Still See Lagging Tax Revenues

The heart bleeds

Eye-popping Wall Street bonuses are back. Yet New York still is not collecting as much tax revenue from the financial sector as it did before the recession. When the good times rolled, one in every five state tax dollars came from Wall Street.

Like a bad hangover that won't go away, some states are still suffering from the effects of the recession that technically ended three and half years ago.

To be sure, most state budgets are finally in the black again, and the 50 states collectively are expected to bring in as much this year as they did in the peak year before the recession. That prediction, which comes from experts at both the National Conference of State Legislatures and the National Association of State Budget Officers , assumes that Washington's belt-tightening isn't too severe.  

But state by state, the recovery has been uneven:  Nearly half the states are expected to collect less tax revenue this year than they did before the recession.