Mississippi is well-noted for being the poorest state in the nation, with a median household income that is almost a third less than the U.S. national average.
One thing, though, that helps to somewhat offset that difference is the lower cost of living in this state.
According to a study released recently by the Tax Foundation, a dollar goes further — about 15 percent further — in Mississippi than elsewhere in the country.
Of course, those two economic statistics are interrelated.
The higher the cost of living, the more that employers must pay in order to attract and keep employees. The more that workers earn, the higher the cost of providing a good or service, and the more that a business has to charge to cover those higher labor costs. And the more that people make, the more they can afford to pay for goods and services.
But also Mississippi has some intrinsic cost advantages. Its access to the Gulf of Mexico and its less congested highways make it cheaper to ship products here.
Perhaps most significant is the lower cost of land and housing. In densely populated areas, land is at a premium, which drives up the cost of buying or renting housing. In Mississippi, there’s a lot of land to go around, which helps hold down real estate prices. Rent prices in this state are 37 percent lower than in the rest of the country, a Tax Foundation official told The Clarion-Ledger of Jackson.
On balance, Mississippians would be better off economically with higher wages and higher expenses, but at least the gap in standard of living is not as wide as it might otherwise seem.
