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Mississippi’s Economic Outlook: Overall Job Loss Slowing, but Construction and Manufacturing Continue to Experience Substantial Declines

September 14, 2010

Filed under: Income & Working Families — admin @ 8:15 PM

Mississippi’s overall employment projected to reach 2000 levels by 2015

On September 14th, the IHL’s Center for Policy Research and Planning presented the most recent data from their June 2010 Economic Outlook. Overall Mississippi continues to experience a slow decline in total employment, although the state’s economy is not shredding jobs at the same high rates encountered in 2009. The total number of jobs available in July 2010 was 0.6 percent lower than the same time last year, signaling that Mississippi continues to lose jobs even as the nation slowly emerges from the current recession.

Construction and manufacturing sectors lost jobs at higher rates than the remainder of Mississippi’s employment sectors. A more positive note was that employment in the business & professional services and mining sectors both increased substantially over the same time last year. The figure below details changes in employment for all sectors from July 2009 to July 2010.

Mississippi’s Overall Employment declines 0.6% from July 2009 to July 2010

Looking forward, state economists project that overall employment in Mississippi will not reach 2000 levels until 2015. Digging deeper, they project sectors like construction, manufacturing, and leisure & hospitality may not reach pre-recession levels until well after 2015. The data indicate that while the rest of the nation is slowly entering recovery, Mississippi’s overall employment will continue to slip until 2011.

As jobs do return across Mississippi, there are growing concerns nationally that the skills needed for the jobs of the future will not be the same as the skills required of workers before the recession began. Companies that cut lower-skilled workers during the recession will require workers with advanced skills beyond those required for traditional assembly line workers. For Mississippi to continue to prosper, education systems are going to have to be prepared to equip the state’s workforce with new skills, and adapt quickly to employer’s labor force demands.

Source: “Mississippi Economic Outlook 2010-2015.” Presentation by the Marianne Hill. Institutions of Higher Learning, Center for Policy Research and Planning. Sept. 14, 2010.
Author: Sarah Welker, Policy Analyst

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Check Cashers Charge More in Mississippi than in Any Other State in the Region

September 8, 2010

Filed under: Income & Working Families,Predatory Lending — admin @ 10:32 AM

Payday loans are advertised as providing solutions to individuals that are temporarily unable to make ends meet due to certain circumstances. However, the high interest rate and short term repayment cycle of payday loans often lead the borrower to taking on additional loans and paying even more fees – often exceeding the initial amount of the loan. Payday lenders also tend to locate in or near high poverty areas as seen in the map below of Gulfport, Mississippi.

Check Cashers, who also can offer payday loans, in Mississippi have a special legislative exemption from state usury laws which allows them to charge more to Mississippians than in any other state in the region. The uneven playing field for the check cashers allows them to charge significantly more than the 36% interest rate cap required by banks, credit unions and finance companies. It also means Mississippians are paying more than working families across state lines.

To address the disparities created by the legislative exemption, reform is needed of this industry in our state.

Author: Antwyn Brown, Policy Analyst

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Women of Mississippi Still Earn Less than Men with Similar Education

September 3, 2010

Filed under: Income & Working Families,Self-Sufficiency — admin @ 9:39 AM

This week the Clarion-Ledger ran an article entitled “Young women without kids or husband outearn men in cities” ,which highlighted that across the nation, young, single women without children earn 8% more than their urban-dwelling, male counterparts. The article may have left some readers curious about trends in women’s and men’s wages in Mississippi.

The women of Mississippi have seen their wages increase relative to men’s over the last 3 decades. In 1979, the median wage of women in Mississippi was 64% of men’s wages. In 2009, the median wage of women in Mississippi was 82% of men’s wages, with a median hourly wage of $11.77 for women and $14.33 for men.* However, as seen below, the women of Mississippi still earn substantially less than men with similar levels of educational attainment.

Women In Mississippi Earn Less Than Men Across All Education Levels

The chart also reveals that regardless of gender, annual earnings increase as education increases. For Mississippi’s women, postsecondary education can lead to substantial earnings increases. Women with an Associate’s degree earn 43% more than those that graduate from high school, but do not go on to postsecondary education. Median wages for women with a Bachelor’s degree are 69% higher than the median high school wages.

Single mothers with children are more likely than any other family type to live on incomes below the Self-Sufficiency Standard. The median wage for women with an Associate’s Degree is above the Self-Sufficiency Standard for one adult in all of Mississippi’s counties, and is above the Self-Sufficiency Standard for one adult with a preschooler in 70 out of Mississippi’s 82 counties. Advancing women into postsecondary education and towards a degree is a key piece of ensuring that women in Mississippi, particularly single mothers, are on a path to economic security for themselves and their children.

Author: Sarah Welker, Policy Analyst
*Source: Economic Policy Institute analysis of Current Population Survey data

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5 Years Later: The Effects of Hurricane Katrina and the Recession on State Revenue

September 1, 2010

Filed under: Budget & Tax,Income & Working Families,Mississippi Economic Recovery Resources — admin @ 7:41 AM

In the last five years, the state has endured some tough challenges, including Hurricane Katrina and the recent recession. The effect of those events on state revenue has been dramatic. After Hurricane Katrina, in addition to the federal aid provided to the state, state tax revenue increased due to recovery activities.

Affected residents bought new items to replace those lost in the storm and bought construction materials for repair and rebuilding. That added up to an increase in sales tax revenue. Accordingly, the state was able to make investments in services like education that it had not been able to make before. The Mississippi Adequate Education Program was fully funded in 2007, for the first time since its creation in 1997. However, the recent recession has eroded those gains. The figure below shows general fund revenue collections and estimates for the last fifteen years.

Mississippi General Fund Revenue Collections and Estimate 1996-2011

General Fund collections peaked in FY 2008 after Katrina and have since declined by $462 Million (9.6%). Tax reform is necessary to update the tax system so that the state can maintain vital investments in areas like education.

Note: The FY 2011 revenue amount is an estimate.

Source: State of Mississippi Budget FY 2011, State General Fund Revenue Estimate from the Revenue Estimating Group 2006-2011, Mississippi Department of Revenue Summary of Transfers June 2010

Author: Sara Miller, Senior Policy Analyst

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