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Dear Jack,
When I first moved to Mississippi, one or two of my friends back in England raised their eyebrows. “Mississippi!” the expression of their faces seemed to say.
Like many people who’ve never had the good fortune to live in this state, when they hear the word “Mississippi”, they think of the river, or a riverboat or cotton field, perhaps.
Maybe it’s time for such folk to think again. Mississippi has real economic momentum.
Our state is the second-fastest growing economy nationwide. In 2024, Mississippi’s real GDP grew by an impressive 4.2%, ranking second in the U.S. and adding $1.27 billion to our economy. We have also seen some remarkable income growth, ranking fifth nationally for per-capita personal income growth in Q3 2024.
Free market reforms (left) help Mississippi overtake European output per person (right)
A record flow of inward investment is coming into our state, while a record $14 billion a year of exports in goods goes out of our state abroad.
For as long as anyone can remember, young people have been leaving Mississippi. Not anymore. SEC colleges have become fashionable, in part perhaps because they are less ‘woke’ than public universities elsewhere. The number of students at Ole Miss and Mississippi State has risen sharply over the past five years.
Soon after I started at the Mississippi Center for Public Policy, a think tanker from another state told me in jest that when they looked at any set of indices about their state, they would say “Thank goodness for Mississippi”. Apparently, our reliably poor performance meant their state would always escape being bottom of the class.
That joke doesn’t work anymore.
Mississippi just led the way in passing legislation to eliminate the income tax. We’re the first state to have managed that since oil-rich Alaska in 1980. Other states are now using Mississippi tax reforms as the model to follow.
Our state pioneered labor market reforms to occupational licensing that have helped drive growth. Mississippi has shown other states how to do it.
If you want low cost energy, Mississippi gives you a pretty good guide as to how to do it, too. The average residential rate in our state is 14 ¢/kWh, among the lowest in America, and about a third of what it costs in California.
A decade or so ago, Mississippi led the way insisting that children be taught to read using phonics. This accounts for our relative (if not so much absolute) improvement in reading scores.
Your support helps fuel this Mississippi success.
Our state might be showing the way, but we also have a lot to learn from other states, particularly when it comes to school choice. Families in Tennessee, Arkansas and Alabama are now able to apply to get control over their child’s share of the state education budget.
There’s a lot more we need to do to get rid of red tape. Mississippi just passed the most conservative budget in years, and we need to keep control over public spending in our state.
Each day when I wake up, I’m not just grateful to be in America. I’m delighted to be in Mississippi.
Have an awesome weekend!
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Warm regards,
Douglas Carswell
President & CEO
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