The leader of the Mississippi Center for Public Policy got a bit ahead of himself when he began a website column with this sentence? “Did you know that Mississippi is now one of the fastest growing states in America?”
Douglas Carswell, the organization’s president and CEO, who is one of the state’s biggest boosters, was correct, but only to a point. There are indeed some new statistics that show improved performance in Mississippi. But to claim definitively that Mississippi’s economy is one of America’s fastest-growing? Slow down, cowboy.
Carswell cites government statistics that say Mississippi’s personal income rose by 4.8% during the July-August-September quarter of 2024. That was third best in the nation.
This is undeniably positive news. But it is undeniably positive for only a three-month period, and nothing more. So let’s see how Mississippi’s doing over a longer term.
The personal income growth for the April-May-June second quarter was even better. Mississippi again ranked in the nation’s top 10, with personal income up 6.1 percent.
In both quarters, Mississippi’s personal income growth was one of the two or three best among Southern states. So it’s a surprise to see that a similar growth rate in the January-February-March first quarter, 5.8%, was one of the 20 lowest in the country.
A possible explanation for the first quarter would be Social Security cost of living adjustments — which is not what anyone should use to claim their economy is growing.
The 2024 fourth quarter personal income numbers won’t be in until this coming March, but it’s a reasonable prediction that Mississippi’s full-year increase will be comfortably above 5%. That compares to 3.7% for all of 2023, which was second-lowest in the country that year, according to Statista.com. That 5% is a strong gain, well above inflation rates.
Still, it takes more than one, two or three quarters of better personal income gains to say Mississippi is out of its traditional 50th-ranked position. You want two or three years before you can confidently say that something transformational is going on in the state.
As Carswell himself correctly wrote, “If we keep growing for the next few years the way we did in 2024, we won’t be bottom of the class for much longer.”
The gross domestic product, which is the value of all goods and services produced, says there is still work to be done. Mississippi’s GDP did not rise in 2024 the way personal income did.
There was a 1.0% increase in the first quarter of 2024 and a 2.5% gain in the second quarter, but these were capped by a much better 5.1% third-quarter increase, which was third best among the 50 states.
Mississippi’s economy appears to be moving in the right direction. But let’s wait till future reports confirm that before the celebration begins.
