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Dear Jack,

Governor Tate Reeves spoke at the Mississippi Economic Council this week about promoting prosperity in our state. He talked about the importance of our state’s per capita income as a benchmark of success.
The good news is that Mississippi has seen strong income growth per person. Mississippians today are twice as rich as they were in 2002, with growth especially strong since 2018.

Mississippi: doubling prosperity in two decades

According to US Census Bureau data, in 2022 per person income in our state was $46,370. Ten years previously in 2012, it was a mere $33,441 (in current prices). In other words, there was a 38% increase in a decade. A decade before that, in 2002, per person income was only half what it is today, at $23,202 (in current prices).

So strong has Mississippi per capita income growth been that in 2023, the state overtook my own native Britain for the first time. (When I pointed this out in a recent article in The Atlantic, not every Brit appreciated it!).

Even better news for us, a dollar in our state will generally go further than a dollar in most other states (albeit that thanks to Joe Biden’s inflationary policies, a dollar does not go as far as it did).

This so-called Purchasing Power Parity means that what you could purchase for a mere $86 in Mississippi would require you to spend $90 in Tennessee, $98 dollars in Texas, or a whopping $111 in California.

Here’s another interesting fact about Mississippi. Contrary to what you might think, Mississippi has been the third fastest growing state in terms of per capita personal income since 1960.

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Per capita growth has seen fast

While Mississippi has had annual personal income growth of 2.6 percent since 1959, some decades have seen growth dip to just above 1 percent. These small changes in annual growth might not sound like much, but as economists Russell Sobel and Brandon Bolen at Mississippi State University have noted, seemingly miniscule changes in annual growth rates can have big cumulative effects over time.

Nudging Mississippi’s growth rate up, even a half a percentage point or two, is the key to producing future prosperity.

Here at the Mississippi Center for Public Policy, we promote polices that produce more growth by increasing economic freedom in our state.

Cutting taxes today might not instantaneously produce more growth, but the evidence shows overwhelmingly that states with lower tax burdens outperform states with a high tax burden (compare Texas and California, or Florida and Illinois for details).

Reducing the size of the state government, and winding down bureaucracy, might not result in overnight investment. Over time, however, less regulation frees businesses, large and small, to do things that red tape would overwise inhibit.

Giving every family in our state control over their child’s tax dollars might not immediately result in economic growth. Applying choice and competition to the education sector, will raise standards, do more for work force development than any state agency could ever do and produce a future work force better able to participate in the labor market.

Eliminating legal restrictions that prevent new healthcare providers operating would boost the state’s health economy. This would not only improve healthcare, but with healthcare an increasingly important economic activity, help growth.

If we want Mississippi to become more prosperous, we need to make Mississippi more free.

Have a wonderful weekend!
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Warm regards,

Douglas Carswell
President & CEO

PS. Did you know how widely read this newsletter is? Today approximately 20,000 other people in Mississippi will be reading it, too. Thank you for being one of them!

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