Mississippi placed well in outlook, but poorly in past performance in a report that measures economic competitiveness among the states.
Last week, the American Legislative Exchange Council released the 14th edition of their annual Rich States, Poor States report, authored by economists Arthur Laffer, Stephen Moore and Jonathan Williams.
ALEC is a non-partisan organization committed to the principles of limited government, free markets and federalism.
Mississippi was ranked 27th in economic outlook, but 47th in past economic performance as measured by state gross domestic product, domestic migration and employment.
The outlook is based on tax policy, public employees per 10,000 residents, liability system, minimum wage and whether the state is a right to work state.
Mississippi's GDP was ranked 47th nationally, while the loss of more than 85,000 residents (more than the population of Gulfport) from 2010 to 2029 was 38th best nationally while non-farm employment was 7 percent, putting the state at 43rd.
The outlook for the Magnolia State has fallen from a high of 14 in 2014 and seven points from last year.
The authors said that states that spend less, especially on income transfer programs, and states that tax less experience higher growth rates than states that tax and spend more.
Emigration to states like Texas and Tennessee, neither of which have income tax, show that residents tend to vote with their feet and flee higher-tax states to those with lower rates and higher-performing economies.
This trend is something that Mississippi has yet to take advantage.
“You're seeing a real divergence in policies, not in every case, but in many cases, between the red states (Republican led) and blue states (Democrat led). These blue states really need to rethinking their whole entire process and reform themselves. There's a good Democratic governor in Colorado (Gov. Jared Polis) who's doing some things to make the state grow,” Moore said. “A lot of these progressive policies in these blue states are putting them in deeper holes and you have this big blue state bailout a couple of months that was hundreds of billions of dollars spent on mainly blue state problems.
“I hope my home state of Illinois and these other blue states get back in the game, because they're way, way behind.”
One of the interesting tools on the individual state pages is the “adjust policies” button. Doing this with the individual income tax by eliminating it entirely as proposed by House Speaker Philip Gunn, R-Clinton increases Mississippi's outlook to 23rd best nationally.
Gunn is on the board of directors of ALEC, along with state Sen. Josh Harkins, R-Flowood.
