Raise your hand if it feels like the Great Recession has never left Columbia. Multiple businesses have closed recently, and many others are struggling.
A Marion County business owner and lifelong resident called me this week and was saying this is the worst he’s ever seen the local economy. His proposed solution was to get public officials to meet with the leaders of major industries to brainstorm ideas to bring in new business. Hey, couldn’t hurt.
But it’s not like this situation is unique to Columbia. Mississippi’s economic growth has been flat for a decade. That means little new meat is out there to be had for businesses, so they’re all wrestling for scraps.
What’s going on? Here are a few possibilities:
1. It could be that things are about to fall off nationally and we’re seeing the first signs of it on the ground.
I talked to another newspaper publisher in a different part of the state recently, and he raised that possibility. Longtime advertisers who would do full pages in special sections are suddenly backing off and doing nothing, he said. He theorized that local businesses feel the sting first before the lagging economic indicators catch up.
2. Prolonged low oil prices are stifling that key industry in South Mississippi.
Oil was over $100 a barrel in 2014 when it took a dive down to below $30 in 2016. It’s been inching upward and is currently trading around $60. That prolonged period of low prices has been good for drivers buying gas, but could it be a net drag on the economy, especially around here where there are many platform workers, truck drivers and others whose jobs are tied to whether oil companies are pumping oil at the moment?
3. This is part of the long-term trend from rural areas to urban, fueled now by millennials who prefer the amenities of a big city. Mississippi only has one true urban area, Jackson, and it has so many social and infrastructure problems that it’s not attractive to people moving in. That would explain why Mississippi’s population is flatlining, while adjoining states grow.
4. Mississippi’s poor educational system is catching up with it as more jobs require advanced knowledge in computers and such.
My traditional way of looking at this is that somebody’s got to actually make something or grow something somewhere down the line to have a real economy, not just playing on phones. And the actual making of stuff traditionally requires a strong back and a weak mind.
But the problem has become that those sorts of people are readily found — for very cheap — in the developing world. China and India continue to see their economies grow rapidly year after year, for example.
Where’s that leave Mississippi’s blue collar workforce? I don’t have the answer to that, other than to say we’ve got to start valuing education. That’s much more important that spending on education. In my experience whether a family thinks school is important is a far stronger indicator of future success than their income or how much their school spends per pupil.
As one retired Mississippi teacher said once, this country was built by people educated in one-room schoolhouses. They didn’t have resources, but they wanted it. They sought and they found.
If we want Columbia and Mississippi to rise out of its current funk, we’re going to have to do the same.
Charlie Smith is editor and publisher of The Columbian-Progress. He can be reached at csmith@columbianprogress.com or (601) 736-2611.
