Mississippi is no longer the poorest state in the union. West Virginia holds that distinction by a rather narrow margin.
But regardless the rank, we struggle against a high rate of poverty and low rates of educational attainment, per capita income, and median household income. We have high rates of obesity, heart disease, diabetes, cancer coupled with the lowest rank for health care outcomes. And now, introduce into that scary mix a global pandemic.
Endemic poverty in Mississippi always makes our state’s economy – even in relatively good times like the last seven years – ‘;fragile and easily spooked. Prior to COVID-19, Mississippi’s economy was ginning along at levels that could only be considered full employment. Economic development efforts were improving.
What is endemic poverty? According to Daniel Farr in the Encyclopedia of World Poverty, the term is defined as “persistent long-term poverty of a particular people or region that may span not just many years but may extend over generations.” That describes my beloved home state.
Mississippi has – through both self-inflicted choices and natural disasters alike – lived far too close for comfort to constant economic distress and uncertainty over our 202-year history. First there was the Civil War and Reconstruction. Then the Great Flood of 1927 flood fundamentally changed the state’s economy on the verge of the next economic disaster — the Great Depression.
With agriculture still struggling to recover after the 1927 flood, the Depression delivered the second consecutive body blow to the state’s economy. At the time, the Great Flood of 1927 was the greatest natural disaster ever to afflict the U.S. and much of the worst of that event took place in Mississippi.
By 1933, the state’s industrial jobs had declined by 46 percent and on one day in 1932, one-fourth of the state’s agricultural lands were sold for taxes. There would be other massive floods in 1942 and in 1973. Hurricanes would ravage the Gulf Coast in 1969 (Camille) and again in 2005 (Katrina).
As the 1927 flood was described decades earlier, Katrina in 2005 was tagged as “the greatest natural disaster in American history.” See a pattern here?
In Mississippi, our endemic poverty began during the Civil War and Reconstruction, continued through the Flood of 1927 and the Great Depression and stretched past Hurricane Katrina and the BP Oil Spill in 2010. Generational poverty has been part of our state’s story, as has race, violence, discrimination, and insularity. And that reality is juxtaposed against the peculiar and bewildering relationships between our people across every sort of socioeconomic and racial divide.
But no prior calamity has the potential to impact Mississippi’s economy and near-term future quite like the COVID-19 pandemic does. A check of the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics reflects that job loss and unemployment claims in the wake of the coronavirus are already eclipsing those seen after either Hurricane Katrina or the BP oil spill.
Already, 46,000 Mississippians are seeking unemployment benefits – and that number is rapidly growing. Stable family businesses, particularly in the service industry, are shutting down and regretfully letting their employees go. A lot of doubt and confusion exists about what a recovery from COVID-19 is going to look like and what the duration of it will be.
Mississippi’s 2.976 million people have a median household income of $43,576. One in five Mississippians or 19.8 percent live in poverty — the highest percentage in the nation.
In short strokes, Mississippi was poor, unhealthy, and had too large a segment of our population uninsured (14 percent) or already on public health care (34 percent) before COVID-19 entered our lives. With a struggling economy, those percentages will surely increase.
Stay home. Stay safe. And remember that as Mississippians, we’ve already faced difficulties in our shared past. That’s part of our DNA. We can do this. But only if we work together.
Sid Salter is a syndicated columnist. Contact him at sidsalter@sidsalter.com.
Wednesday, April 15, 2020
Sid Salter: Covid-19 Poses Familiar Threat to Economy Older Mississippians Recognize
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9 comments:
ever notice that there is nothing mississippi news media ''personalities'' like this guy, are more obsessed with than ''polls'' and ''rankings''.
mr salter mentions ''reconstruction''. he fails to mention the last vestige left of reconstruction.......which is the federal court system.
the current system of federal courts was established during reconstruction to totally and forever subjugate the south. there is a reason he won't mention that. reason being is that he and every other journalist in this state, with the exception of kingfish, is scared shitless of federal judges. with the exception of this blog , you will never see media criticism of a federal judge. think about it.
Almost like we shouldn’t have shut down the economy when we could have just advised people to be sanitary and give each other space.
Nothing like self inflicted damage.
in paragraph 2 salter lists several self-inflicted diseases and then proceed to talk about the ''low health care rank'' in mississippi. i hope every health care professional in jacksons health care corridor is reading this. listen up salter, there is an old saying ''jackson is a good place to get sick''. reason is we got some of the best heath care in the nation. i hope all health care professionals out there remember your puney comments when you come running to jackson to get treated.
Kf, I like your idea to open schools and not expose everyone. Maybe we could keep all the kids together and not let them go home where they will spread the disease to their parents and grandparents and general public. We could build them rooms with locked doors and have a big fence around the property to prevent escapes and have guards at the perimeter with big lights and maybe dogs patrolling the border. That sounds like a much healthier environment to raise children.
Don't put words in my mouth. I said it depended on testing capabilities we don't have right now as well as contact tracing.
KF, please read 9:53am and also, please note that you cannot make those two analogies without looking at what was known, when it was known, and what was done and can be done now with isolating the spread and treatment meningitis and TB.
I would remind you that we isolated from the population, TB patients and polios patients and those exposed during as recently as the 1950s. We greatly reduced STDs for decades with forced testing required to get a marriage license and with those treated being required to name their sexual partners.
You simply can't make the same comparisons with CV19 not just because of the unknowns but because of what we do know about this particular type of virus when it moves from animals to humans and is highly contagious with mild or no symptoms and lives on surfaces so damn long.
There can be a return to work and restoration of supply chains but it will require detailed, informed planning. We desperately need reliable tests. Or as the business owner pointed to, a good plan that can be approved and enforced is acceptable.
I would ask you to research the long term economic effects in those communities who ignored the Spanish flu vs those that took measures in the US.
THAT is our best comparison...an highly contagious virus for which we were unprepared and started here and we spread into a pandemic. Compare us to Spain that got blamed. Look at the timeline for that flu.
Detailed planning, prioritizing, and allocating of resources is what we need and what is not happening in any sort of rational and consistent way.
IMHO our Governor overlooked the three best people, two from industry and one from medicine , all of whom are retired with the time needed to focus on this and who know a medicine and business from a " nuts and bolts" perspective not always given to those who inherit.
Where, when and why the hell is 'contact tracing' a possibility. Why even mention the impossible?
Salter is no longer the crappiest commentator in MS. Crawford holds that distinction by a rather narrow margin.
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