For as long as anyone can remember, we’ve been told that one of the best attributes about living in Mississippi is it is one of the most affordable places to live in the entire country. We’ve heard that for so long and so often that it’s taken as fact, especially when cited as a reason to oppose unions or raise wages.
No one really bothered to scrutinize those claims.
So, where would you rank Mississippi among the states in affordability? Top five, maybe? Well, certainly in the top 10, right?
On July 1, the career recruiting firm Lensa.com released its study of how the states compare in affordability. Virginia, Illinois and Texas ranked as the top 3 most affordable states.
Mississippi? Hold on to your hat.
To find our state in the rankings, you have to go all the way down to No. 42. That’s right, Mississippi is the eighth least affordable state to live in, slightly worse than New York.
Let that sink in. New York is more affordable than Mississippi. It’s like saying the sky is green and the grass is blue.
Hawaii, incidentally, is the least affordable state, which likely surprises no one.
But Mississippi’s ranking should be an eye-opener.
Lensa compiled its ranking by comparing average income to the average costs of housing, food, transportation and utilities, then used that data to compare the costs of living to income. The difference between the cost of living and average wage in Mississippi is 8.08 percent. In New York, the percentage is 8.54 percent. By comparison that number is -20.32 percent in least affordable Hawaii and 49.64 percent in most affordable Virginia.
As you might suspect, New York’s cost of living is higher across the board compared to Mississippi. New Yorkers pay 3 ½ times more for housing each year, for example.
The difference in average wages is what makes Mississippi slightly less affordable than New York.
In recent years, we’ve heard our state leaders talk about reversing the “brain drain’’ — the exodus of college graduates to other states where there are more and better opportunities. But if we can glean anything from this study, it should be that the issue goes beyond that specific group.
Workers in Mississippi have very little leverage when it comes to wages. Over the years, the state legislature has passed legislation to make it harder for workers to unionize. State government is not a neutral observer when workers attempt to unionize their work places. The government is always on the company’s side in the debate.
Likewise, efforts for the state to establish its own minimum wage have gone nowhere. Mississippi is one of just five states — Alabama, Louisiana, South Carolina, and Tennessee are the others — that don’t have a minimum wage, instead using the federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour, which hasn’t increased since 2009.
Given the current instability in our economy, most notably inflation, now may not be the time to address what can be done to improve Mississippi’s affordability.
Certainly, there are many, many reasons why our state is a good place to live — the climate, the natural beauty of our state, the friendliness of our people, just to name a few.
But if we want to improve the quality of life for all Mississippians, disposing of the myth that our state is among the most affordable is a good place to start.
The Dispatch Editorial Board is made up of publisher Peter Imes, columnist Slim Smith, managing editor Zack Plair and senior newsroom staff.
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