The state and national economies are in bad shape, but an emphasis on improving residents” education could help turn things around, a leading economist said Thursday at Mississippi State University.
Darrin Webb, senior economist with the Mississippi Institutions of Higher Learning, told a group of about two dozen people at the Oktibbeha County Leadership Forum that Mississippi”s economy has suffered partly because the state in past years has been so laden with manufacturing jobs. Those jobs generally tend to require less education, Webb said, and the manufacturing industry has suffered significantly during the past two years.
According to Webb, 56,700 people have lost their jobs in Mississippi since December of 2007; many worked in the manufacturing industry.
As of 2000, 72.9 percent of Mississippi residents had at least a high school education, compared to 80.4 percent nationally.
“The more education you have, the more likely you are to be in the workforce, the more likely you are to actually have a job,” Webb said. “The lack of education, the lack of skills, is a real weight on Mississippi”s growth potential.”
“Even if we didn”t have the current crisis that we have (nationally), Mississippi”s economy would still be sluggish,” he added later.
With the down economy, retail sales have suffered. Webb called consumer spending the “weakest part of the economy,” even though retail sales in the third quarter of this year were up slightly compared to last year. He thinks that, even though retail sales might appear to be on the rise, this holiday shopping season so far doesn”t appear to have been as big a boom as some businesses need.
“People are still going out, they”re still shopping, but they”re being very cautious with their money,” Webb said, citing contact with retailers around the state.
Webb has a number of concerns, including growing debt levels and budget strains on the state and federal governments; inflation as a long-term threat; a general fear and feeling of confusion among consumers and businesses; and a shift in the global economy.
Shopping at Walmart, for instance, benefits China because many of the products sold there are made in China, Webb said.
Mississippi State University Assistant professor of public administration Bethany Stich asked Webb if shopping at local businesses instead of Walmart would help stimulate the economy. But he said “probably not” because Walmart is such a large-scale operation and foreign countries offer cheaper labor and cheaper products, which makes it tough for local companies to compete.
Grady Dixon, assistant professor of geosciences, asked Webb if people in the late 1980s, who also were living in a struggling economy, ever could have predicted the 1990s would bring so much prosperity. The 1990s saw a steady growth pattern on the state and national levels, Webb said, but the 2000s, especially in recent years, have brought a decline.
“The past decade, in terms of the economy, has been lost in the state of Mississippi,” he said.
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