Which economy is thriving more? Great Britain, Japan, France or Mississippi? The answer, of course, is Mississippi. In 2024, our state’s per capita output reached $53,872, surpassing Japan ($32,859), France ($47,954), and even Great Britain ($52,369).
This year, Mississippi is poised to overtake Germany, whose output is declining amid recession, while our state grows fast.
When I point this out to some of my Euro friends, someone often asks about Purchasing Power Parity. “Surely”, they say, “if you take into account the purchasing power of a dollar on our side of the Atlantic, Mississippi’s lead over Europe disappears”. Not so. Actually, if you consider the different purchasing power of a dollar in our state, Mississippi’s lead over Europe grows even longer.
Europe is falling behind not due to any statistical sleight of hand, but because of bad public policy. Taxes in Europe and Japan are too high. Labor markets are inflexible. Energy costs in Europe are insanely high thanks to decades of renewable dogma.
Mississippi is now one of the fastest growing states in America thanks to good public policy. In 2021, our state implemented significant labor market reforms (as proposed by MCPP). In 2022, Mississippi implemented flat tax reform (again, MCPP led the way).
Our state has kept energy costs low by avoiding the renewable boondoggle. In 2024, our state adopted school funding reform that gets more money into the classroom (again, MCPP policy). This year, our state legislated to eliminate the income tax. (Modesty precludes me from pointing out that this, too, was MCPP policy being implemented).
Thanks to these free market reforms, our state is on a roll. Disposable income per person in Mississippi now exceeds that of all the major European economies like the UK, France, Italy, Spain, and Germany, too. There is so much inward investment pouring in that this week, when another $6 billion project in Rankin County was announced, it barely raised a ripple of comment.
As I keep pointing out, we’ve had more economic growth in Mississippi in the past five years than over the previous fifteen. This year, Mississippi and Alabama, once dismissed as the economically backward south, will manufacture more cars (about 1.5 million) than France or Britain or Italy.
Douglas Carswell is the President and CEO of the Mississippi Center for Public Policy and former member of British Parliament.
MageeNews.com is the online news source for Simpson and surrounding counties as well as the State of Mississippi
