More bad news for New Jersey Governor Chris Christie. As he tries to survive an explosive corruption scandal and stave off a federal audit on use of Hurricane Sandy funds, a new study ranks New Jersey the least economically solvent state in the nation.

George Mason University's Mercatus Center released a working paper Thursday ranking the solvency of the 50 states by a number of factors--from "liquidity and budgetary balance" to "reliance on debt to finance current and long-term expenditures and ability to pay for essential services." They further subdivided the category of solvency generally into cash solvency, budget solvency, long-run solvency, and service-level solvency.

The study finds that New Jersey is in the worst financial state of any state in the union generally, while also being the worst in budget and long-run solvency. New Jersey's highest ranking on any list, #39, is for service-level solvency, though the statistics used for this study predate the spike in service needs after Hurricane Sandy.