Articles Archive
Mississippi in for slow recovery
"The economy has turned the corner, but for many workers what lies ahead will not be much different. The state’s unemployment rate averaged 10.9% in the first three quarters of 2010, and will remain above 10% for months to come as small gains in several economic indicators fail to transla...
Mississippi State Pension Plan Funding Criticized
"We show that government accounting standards require states to use procedures that severely understate their liabilities." In a recent paper (Fall 2009) by two Finance professors, State pensions were analzyed and the results weren't pretty in many cases. Robert-Novy Marx (Univers...
Mississippi’s budget woes are not among the worst
An article in the Sunday New York Times (January 23, 2011) about the budget woes of various states as a result of the Great Recession does not include Mississippi among the most troubled. The article indicated that Mississippi is likely to have a FY2012 shortfall of about 14.1% of the FY2...
Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta has some encouraging news for Mississippi
A report published by the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta (“The Southeast in 2011”) contains some potentially good news for the Mississippi economy. The report argues that while “Mississippi has been slow in regaining jobs,” the good news is that &a...
Institute for Supply Management Report Shows Growth in Manufacturing
"The manufacturing sector grew at a faster rate in January as the PMI registered 60.8 percent, which is its highest level since May 2004 when the index registered 61.4 percent” (January 2011 ISM Report on Business). The Institute for Supply Management released its Janu...
Center on Budget and Policy Priorities looks back at the Great Recession
Amidst much debate regarding what actions should and should not be taken by government (Federal, State, and Local) entities, the CBPP has posted a very informative look back at the Great Recession. Their data clearly shows the depth of this recession and the reasons for the anticipated sl...
Pew Research Center finds changing views of Federal spending.
A new report by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press finds the public’s opinion about Federal spending is beginning to change, but there is still little passion for large budget cuts, particularly at the state level. According the report, “The s...
Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco suspects higher “natural rate†of long term unemployment
“Mounting evidence suggests that structural factors may have increased the “normal” rate of unemployment to about 6.7%. Much of this increase is likely to be temporary. In particular, the extension of unemployment benefits probably accounts for about half of ...
Kauffman survey of economic bloggers reveals some economic optimism
“After a year of increasing pessimism about the U.S. economy, the country's top economics bloggers see a bit of hope on the horizon in 2011, according to a new Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation survey released today”. As the graph below shows, most st...
The Wisconsin tax battle
“When it comes to improving public understanding of tax policy, nothing has been more troubling than the deeply flawed coverage of the Wisconsin state employees' fight over collective bargaining. Economic nonsense is being reported as fact in most of the news reports on ...