Mississippi Today
Mississippi isn’t known for remote workers, but local entrepreneurs say demand is growing
Mississippi isn’t known for remote workers, but local entrepreneurs say demand is growing
BILOXI — Geneva Drummer’s vision is a decade in the making. The Gulf Coast entrepreneur realized what her business community needed before they did.
By 2016, Drummer was one of Mississippi’s earliest leaders in flexible workspaces, virtual offices and co-working when she opened The Meeting Space in Biloxi. Four years later, the pandemic upended work habits across the country, making work-from-home more acceptable and got even the most traditional corporate leaders seeing the benefits of less traditional office setups.
Drummer’s business helped fill in the blanks — and is growing fast with a second recently opened space in downtown Biloxi and a third soon to open in Gulfport.
“Mississippi has co-working spaces and the demand is there,” Drummer said, “we’re still behind, but growing.”
Mississippi’s flexible offices and co-working spaces — turnkey commercial offices and desks for independent remote workers, businesses and startups — are mainly clustered on the coast and near Jackson with a couple scattered in Oxford and Tupelo. They may not be as popular as they are in other states and bigger cities, but those creating the office spaces see an increasing demand.
“I think people are realizing work-from-home is great but work-from-home presents its own challenges and does not solve every problem,” said Adam Horlock, the center manager at Office Evolution in Flowood near Jackson. “Businesses are realizing: ‘We do not need a large lease or a large space somewhere, but we need something.’”
The nation’s number of remote workers tripled to nearly 18% between 2019 and 2021, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s community survey. Meanwhile, 6.3% of Mississippians work from home, according to the same set of data. It may be lower than the national average, but it’s still about three times more than what it was in 2016.
Drummer and Horlock primarily see remote workers who want an office to go to a couple times a week or few times a month and businesses who need designated workspaces for employees without the headaches of renting a massive office space.
Startups and small companies, especially for the state’s fledgling medical cannabis business, have gone to the flexible office spaces. There’s marketing firms that have workers who spend most the week at home but need a conference room for scheduled meetings a few times a month. There’s the independent behavior therapist who meets with patients for sessions in a private one-desk office and an accountant that needs a rented desk to get some quiet while the kids are home from school.
“I knew I wanted office space,” said one of The Meeting Space’s members, Burl Barbour, from a private suite. “I knew I wouldn’t be disciplined enough if I stayed home.”
Barbour and his wife recently moved to Mississippi after years nearby in Mobile. Rather than leave his job working as a project manager for an Alabama-based commercial door company, he became a remote worker in Biloxi.
Before the move, he hadn’t heard of co-working spaces. Now, he’s a fan of his “own little world” at the shared office — just a 15-minute drive from his home.
Drummer said the expansion of co-working spaces as an integral part of growing Mississippi’s economy. Folks need spaces to network, a hub to innovate with one another, and access affordable services without multi-year lease commitments. She seeks out downtown real estate, taking advantage of a metro area’s walkability.
Drummer said most often she’ll get a remote worker for about three months — maybe they just moved to the area and are still setting up their at-home office. Some opt for the open co-working spaces, where folks mingle and work, while other, like Barbour’s company, pay up for private offices.
Nearby in Jackson County, economic development leaders have isolated attracting more remote workers to the Gulf Coast as a way to diversify the region’s economy and attract wealthier people to the state. They’re now planning ways to market the county as a destination for remote workers not tied to any one location but want to see their salary go farther.
“We have got five generations of people right now currently in our workforce,” said Mary Martha Henson, deputy director of the Jackson County Economic Development Foundation. “This remote working concept was already going on before COVID, but then in a COVID environment and a post-COVID environment, more people are in a situation where they can live where they want to and still be a productive employee.”
While the county advertises Mississippi’s affordability compared to other coastal cities that are well-established destination cities, they still need to have the features millennials seek out — things that allow them to live, work and play in the same area.
“Some of the younger generation really care about quality of life features,” Henson said. “If we want to remain competitive, we really have to think about these things.”
Among the hip coffee places, restaurants and local shops, co-working offices are keeping up with the tastes of the millennial and up-and-coming Gen Z workforces.
“We’re filling a need that traditional office spaces just can’t fill,” Horlock said. “We’re flexible, turnkey and the cost is low. We provide everything – even free Starbucks. Bring your laptop and you can usually set up that same day.”
Drummer’s two Biloxi locations are a short walk from one another on Water Street and Howard Avenue, where parts of the historic downtown are closed off to cars.
She’s seen other co-working spaces in the area fail — one tried making use of vacant spaces in a shopping mall. The location, she said, wasn’t ideal for a lot of young workers who want to feel connected to their communities and in hubs of activity.
She said for those seeking to start a coworking space of their own, the margins are hard to make work if the business operator doesn’t own their real estate outright.
Her new location in Gulfport is on the edge of downtown, but she was able to partner with Omni Technologies – an IT support company – that will be a member of the new space.
Nearby in Waveland, WorkWise’s primary business is providing administrative services and support to small businesses. But rather than let part of its office space sit vacant, the company offers private offices and coworking spaces similar to Drummer’s.
Drummer wants to see flexible offices and coworking spaces spread across the state. She has fielded calls from out-of-state companies seeking locations similar to hers for their remote employees in parts of the state where the options aren’t available — like Columbus and Natchez.
She has expansion on her mind, but one location at a time. After Gulfport is up and running, she may turn her attention to Hattiesburg.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Mississippi Today
On this day in 1997
Dec. 22, 1997
The Mississippi Supreme Court upheld the conviction of white supremacist Byron De La Beckwith for the 1963 murder of Medgar Evers.
In the court’s 4–2 decision, Justice Mike Mills praised efforts “to squeeze justice out of the harm caused by a furtive explosion which erupted from dark bushes on a June night in Jackson, Mississippi.”
He wrote that Beckwith’s constitutional right to a speedy trial had not been denied. His “complicity with the Sovereignty Commission’s involvement in the prior trials contributed to the delay.”
The decision did more than ensure that Beckwith would stay behind bars. The conviction helped clear the way for other prosecutions of unpunished killings from the Civil Rights Era.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Mississippi Today
Medicaid expansion tracker approaches $1 billion loss for Mississippi
About the time people ring in the new year next week, the digital tracker on Mississippi Today’s homepage tabulating the amount of money the state is losing by not expanding Medicaid will hit $1 billion.
The state has lost $1 billion not since the start of the quickly departing 2024 but since the beginning of the state’s fiscal year on July 1.
Some who oppose Medicaid expansion say the digital tracker is flawed.
During an October news conference, when state Auditor Shad White unveiled details of his $2 million study seeking ways to cut state government spending, he said he did not look at Medicaid expansion as a method to save money or grow state revenue.
“I think that (Mississippi Today) calculator is wrong,” White said. “… I don’t think that takes into account how many people are going to be moved off the federal health care exchange where their health care is paid for fully by the federal government and moved onto Medicaid.”
White is not the only Mississippi politician who has expressed concern that if Medicaid expansion were enacted, thousands of people would lose their insurance on the exchange and be forced to enroll in Medicaid for health care coverage.
Mississippi Today’s projections used for the tracker are based on studies conducted by the Institutions of Higher Learning University Research Center. Granted, there are a lot of variables in the study that are inexact. It is impossible to say, for example, how many people will get sick and need health care, thus increasing the cost of Medicaid expansion. But is reasonable that the projections of the University Research Center are in the ballpark of being accurate and close to other studies conducted by health care experts.
White and others are correct that Mississippi Today’s calculator does not take into account money flowing into the state for people covered on the health care exchange. But that money does not go to the state; it goes to insurance companies that, granted, use that money to reimburse Mississippians for providing health care. But at least a portion of the money goes to out-of-state insurance companies as profits.
Both Medicaid expansion and the health care exchange are part of the Affordable Care Act. Under Medicaid expansion people earning up to $20,120 annually can sign up for Medicaid and the federal government will pay the bulk of the cost. Mississippi is one of 10 states that have not opted into Medicaid expansion.
People making more than $14,580 annually can garner private insurance through the health insurance exchanges, and people below certain income levels can receive help from the federal government in paying for that coverage.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, legislation championed and signed into law by President Joe Biden significantly increased the federal subsidies provided to people receiving insurance on the exchange. Those increased subsidies led to many Mississippians — desperate for health care — turning to the exchange for help.
White, state Insurance Commissioner Mike Chaney, Gov. Tate Reeves and others have expressed concern that those people would lose their private health insurance and be forced to sign up for Medicaid if lawmakers vote to expand Medicaid.
They are correct.
But they do not mention that the enhanced benefits authored by the Biden administration are scheduled to expire in December 2025 unless they are reenacted by Congress. The incoming Donald Trump administration has given no indication it will continue the enhanced subsidies.
As a matter of fact, the Trump administration, led by billionaire Elon Musk, is looking for ways to cut federal spending.
Some have speculated that Medicaid expansion also could be on Musk’s chopping block.
That is possible. But remember congressional action is required to continue the enhanced subsidies. On the flip side, congressional action would most likely be required to end or cut Medicaid expansion.
Would the multiple U.S. senators and House members in the red states that have expanded Medicaid vote to end a program that is providing health care to thousands of their constituents?
If Congress does not continue Biden’s enhanced subsidies, the rates for Mississippians on the exchange will increase on average about $500 per year, according to a study by KFF, a national health advocacy nonprofit. If that occurs, it is likely that many of the 280,000 Mississippians on the exchange will drop their coverage.
The result will be that Mississippi’s rate of uninsured — already one of the highest in the nation – will rise further, putting additional pressure on hospitals and other providers who will be treating patients who have no ability to pay.
In the meantime, the Mississippi Today counter that tracks the amount of money Mississippi is losing by not expanding Medicaid keeps ticking up.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Mississippi Today
On this day in 1911
Dec. 21, 1911
Josh Gibson, the Negro League’s “Home Run King,” was born in Buena Vista, Georgia.
When the family’s farm suffered, they moved to Pittsburgh, and Gibson tried baseball at age 16. He eventually played for a semi-pro team in Pittsburgh and became known for his towering home runs.
He was watching the Homestead Grays play on July 25, 1930, when the catcher injured his hand. Team members called for Gibson, sitting in the stands, to join them. He was such a talented catcher that base runners were more reluctant to steal. He hit the baseball so hard and so far (580 feet once at Yankee Stadium) that he became the second-highest paid player in the Negro Leagues behind Satchel Paige, with both of them entering the National Baseball Hame of Fame.
The Hall estimated that Gibson hit nearly 800 homers in his 17-year career and had a lifetime batting average of .359. Gibson was portrayed in the 1996 TV movie, “Soul of the Game,” by Mykelti Williamson. Blair Underwood played Jackie Robinson, Delroy Lindo portrayed Satchel Paige, and Harvey Williams played “Cat” Mays, the father of the legendary Willie Mays.
Gibson has now been honored with a statue outside the Washington Nationals’ ballpark.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
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