Mississippi Today
Mississippi has nation’s lowest workforce participation rate, report shows
Mississippi has the lowest labor force participation rate in the nation, and it’s impacting women and their families.
A recent report by the nonprofit Empower Mississippi found the state’s labor force participation rate – the percentage of working-age people who have jobs or are looking for jobs – is 53.9%. This is despite record economic growth and low unemployment.
The report found that the most important factors in labor force participation were education, age, gender and race.
Men have a higher labor force participation rate than women, 59.8% and 48.5%, respectively. This is despite there being more working-age women than men, and women’s and men’s labor force participation rates declining at similar levels.
Matt Williams from the Mississippi Low-Income Child Care Initiative said the lack of affordable child care, lack of time and money for education and training, and low wages are barriers for women in the workforce.
With Mississippi having the nation’s highest number of single mom-headed households – 42% with 80% of them led by single moms – .Williams also emphasized the importance of policies that uplifted single mothers economically.
“What’s not happening is we’re not connecting families headed by moms to higher wage work,” he said.
But the Empower report’s focus on gender as a factor in the state’s low labor participation rate needs context, he said..
“…When we look at labor force participation for moms, for women with children in Mississippi, what we see is that it is really high relative to other categories and subcategories of the population,” he said.
The Committee for Economic Development of The Conference Board found that Mississippi women with children between the ages of 18 and 54 have a higher labor force participation rate than childless women in the same age group.
Mississippi mothers with children ages 5 to 14 had a labor force participation rate of just over 77%. For mothers with kids under 14, it is 73%. Two-thirds of those women are married. For childless women, it is 68.5%.
State Economist Corey Miller. Miller said low educational attainment at high school and college levels and high rates of disability and incarceration also are major issues with labor force participation.
Empower Mississippi commissioned the National Strategic Planning & Analysis Research Center to conduct the quantitative research, which interviewed over 50 stakeholders, including legislators, professors and business leaders.
Miller was one of those interviewed. Like Williams, he said the lack of affordable childcare is a major issue for women in and out of the workforce. Another big overall challenge, he said, is bringing in companies that can bring jobs to the state.
“You kind of get a chicken and egg problem,” he said. “Can you get companies that want to hire college-educated workers to come to the state if you don’t have a big enough population of that? But at the same time, if you get a population educated with college degrees, how do you get them to stay in the state if they don’t have the job opportunities that they’re looking for?”
He believes having more remote work opportunities could be a solution. “It has the potential to increase labor force participation because it allows more flexibility, particularly for women who may have children at home,” he said.
He also pointed out the work being done to improve training and education such as AccelerateMS and the state’s workforce development agency.
Rebekah Staples, a fellow at Empower Mississippi, said this report was the first. An interim report is coming out next year that looks deeper into the issues raised in the first.
“The end goal is to be helpful and study the issues that policymakers want to look at so that perhaps they can use some of this data to act on,” she said.
In June, Lt. Gov. Hosemann announced the establishment of two Senate study committees. The Labor Force Participation Study Group is looking at why the labor force participation rate is so low. The Study Group on Women, Children, and Families, originally created in 2022, will address problems like women’s healthcare, access to childcare, the foster care system and more.
The findings from the original study group inspired the law to provide presumptive Medicaid eligibility to pregnant women.
In a statement, Hosemann expects Empower Mississippi to testify for the Labor Force Participation Study Group, and said that the data would intersect with the other study group.
“When labor force participation increases, the entire state wins — we are more stable, healthier, and more likely to contribute to our families and communities. Supporting women who may need help with issues like childcare in order to go to school or get a job is critical to these efforts,” he said.
Comments and recommendations for the study groups can be sent to LaborStudyGroup@senate.ms.gov and WCPStudyGroup@senate.ms.gov. Empower Mississippi is taking comments about it’s report at research@empowerms.org.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Crooked Letter Sports Podcast
Podcast: New Orleans sports columnist and author Jeff Duncan joins the podcast to talk about his new Steve Gleason book and the new-look New Orleans Saints.
Jeff Duncan went from the Mississippi Book Festival in Jackson on Saturday to Jerry World in Dallas on Sunday where he watched and wrote about the Saints’ total dismantling of the Dallas Cowboys. We talk about both events and also about what happened in high school and college football last weekend and what’s coming up this weekend.
Stream all episodes here.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Mississippi Today
On this day in 1899
Sept. 18, 1899
Scott Joplin, known as “the King of Ragtime,” copyrighted the “Maple Leaf Rag,” which became the first song to sell more than 1 million copies of sheet music. The popularity launched a sensation surrounding ragtime, which has been called America’s “first classical music.”
Born near Texarkana, Texas, Joplin grew up in a musical family. He worked on the railroad with other family members until he was able to earn money as a musician, traveling across the South. He wound up playing at the World’s Fair in Chicago in 1893, where he met fellow musician Otis Saunders, who encouraged him to write down the songs he had been making up to entertain audiences. In all, Joplin wrote dozens of ragtime songs.
After some success, he moved to New York City, hoping he could make a living while stretching the boundaries of music. He wrote a ragtime ballet and two operas, but success in these new forms eluded him. He was buried in a pauper’s grave in New York City in 1917.
More than six decades later, his music was rediscovered, initially by Joshua Rifkin, who recorded Joplin’s songs on a record, and then Gunther Schuller of the New England Conservatory, who performed four of the ragtime songs in concert: “My faculty, many of whom had never even heard of Joplin, were saying things like, ‘My gosh, he writes melodies like Schubert!’”
Joplin’s music won over even more admirers through the 1973 movie, “The Sting,” which won an Oscar for the music. His song, “The Entertainer,” reached No. 3 on Billboard and was ranked No. 10 among “Songs of the Century” list by the Recording Industry Association of America. His opera “Treemonisha” was produced to wide acclaim, and he won a Pulitzer Prize in 1976 for his special contribution to American music.
“The ragtime craze, the faddish thing, will obviously die down, but Joplin will have his position secure in American music history,” Rifkin said. “He is a treasurable composer.”
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Mississippi Today
Insurance chief Chaney hopes Mississippi’s homeowner rates are stabilizing
Mississippi Insurance Commissioner Mike Chaney says he is hopeful that the homeowner insurance rates that have spiked in recent years are now beginning to stabilize.
Chaney said he is hopeful that legislation passed during the 2024 session that provides grants to help homeowners put more wind resistant roofs on their homes will help lower the cost of premiums. He said the Legislature placed $5 million in the program.
“While this will help launch the program, the Legislature will need to provide additional annual funding well above this amount so that the program can provide the necessary benefits to reach a significant number of policyholders across our state,” Chaney said via email.
While homeowners’ insurance rates in Mississippi have risen significantly, the increases have been less than in many surrounding states, according to various studies.
Chaney said his agency, which regulates the insurance industry in Mississippi, has received requests for double digit increases.
“We worked with companies to consider less than what their indicated need was … We feel that rate pressures will begin to stabilize along with inflation. Some companies that requested rates over 15% last year are now seeing a much lesser need – many are now in single digits,” Chaney said.
Inflation and the frequency of severe weather causing insurance claims are the two primary reasons for the increases in the homeowners’ insurance rates, according to Chaney.
Earlier this year the U.S. Senate issued a report addressing the rising costs of homeowners insurance premiums. The Democratic majority cited weather associated with climate change as the primary reason for the increase. Republicans discounted climate change and blamed the increase on inflation.
According to data compiled by Insurance.com and updated this month, the average cost of a policy for a $300,000 home in Mississippi is $3,380 per year, which is $779 or 30% above the national average.
The cost in Mississippi, though, is lower than many other Southern states. For instance, the cost in Louisiana is 38% above the national average and 52% above the national average in Arkansas. Florida is 70% above the national average while Texas is 48%. Other Southern states — Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee and Kentucky — are below the national average.
Realtor Magazine in May cited a report from Insurify, a virtual insurance company, saying, “The states with the highest home insurance costs are prone to severe weather events. Florida, Louisiana, Texas, Arkansas and Mississippi are vulnerable to hurricanes. Texas, Colorado and Nebraska face a growing wildfire risk. Nebraska, Texas and Kansas are at high risk for tornadoes, being located in an area nicknamed ‘Tornado Alley.’”
Chaney said there are two types of processes for how insurance companies get rate increases. He said Mississippi is “a prior approval” state where the companies must receive approval from the regulator before an increase can be enacted. Other states –file and use states – allow the company to enact the increase before receiving approval.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
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