Since the reform and opening up, significant achievements have been made in the revitalization of rural areas in China. Poverty alleviation and the comprehensive resolution of absolute poverty are the key to achieving common prosperity. To further consolidate rural poverty alleviation work and prevent the possibility of rural economy returning to poverty, a measurement model for economic instability was established using Wuqi County as an example,and the impact of ecological compensation and non-agricultural employment on economic instability was analyzed.An in-depth analysis using the three-stage generalized least squares method revealed that the average economic instability index in rural areas of the county is 0.20, bounded by 0.30, 67.80% of farmers have no economic instability,while 32.20% of farmers have economic instability. Ecological compensation income accounts for 12.50% of the disposable income of rural households and is an important source of income for economically supportive households.For every 1-2 yuan increase in per capita ecological compensation income, the economic instability index decreases by 0.001, a result validated by a 0.1 significance test. The results showed that policy recommendations for optimizing resource allocation, improving rural environment and labor market, and strengthening ecological compensation have effectively alleviated economic instability in rural areas, prevented the possibility of poverty return, and provided strong policy support for the consolidation of poverty alleviation work.