A major issue confronting state leaders is Mississippi’s lowest-in-the nation labor force participation rate – 54.5% compared to the national average of 62.6%. A popular political notion is that there are many able-bodied adults drawing SNAP benefits who do not work, but should, and contribute to that low participation rate.
Let’s overlay this on one of Mississippi’s struggling rural counties.
Issaquena County, located just north of Vicksburg in the Mississippi Delta, suffers from high poverty, 21%, low average household income, $17,109, and population loss. Census data shows a 40% decline in population from 2000 to 2020 from 2,258 to 1,338. Estimates indicate population continues to fall, a trend other rural counties face.
The county’s labor force participation rate is under 30% compared to the state’s rate of 54.5%. The labor force participation rate in simple terms is the civilian labor force total divided by the population age 16 and above.
Its civilian labor force totaled 320 according to Mississippi Department of Employment Security (MDES) data in July. Of that, 290 were employed and 20 were unemployed (sic). Census data show the employment rate at 17.6% compared to 52.5% for the state.
Approximately 900 residents over the age of 16 do not participate in the labor force. Some are older and retired, but age data suggest most are between the ages 20 and 60.
But that does not necessarily mean they are employable.
Census data show 42.5% of residents have one or more disabilities compared to the state rate of 18.1%. There are at least 429 adults with hearing, vision, cognitive, ambulatory, self-care, and/or independent living disabilities. Yet, only 20 adults receive Social Security disability payments.
Other data show 40.5% of the population age 25 and up without a high school degree or GED. Another 38% have only those education achievements.
Minimally educated, disabled adults do not constitute an attractive workforce. But if they want benefits, some may be forced to find jobs. Where would 100 or so such residents find them?
The MDES Job Search tool shows only 16 jobs openings within 25 miles of Mayersville, the county seat. Most are supervisor/manager or technical jobs.
Census data show 16 county businesses and 12 government agencies with employees and only two of the businesses employ more than 20 people. A high number of employed residents must commute 30 minutes or more to other counties for work.
Putting SNAP recipients to work and improving the labor force participation rate in places like Issaquena County will be a tough challenge.
“Do what is right” – Psalm 34:14.
Crawford is a syndicated columnist from Jackson.
45 comments:
Time for Issaquenna County to merge with another county. I don't even see how they can function with such a low population.
That is one small county. I'd like to see the same analysis for Hinds County.
Using extremes does not validate an argument. Issaquena County is the least populous county east of the Mississippi River for the entire United States. Using the statistics from an outlier to extrapolate to the rest of the state is a fallacy of logic. Your political opponent could simply put a population floor on work requirements for SNAP benefits, and your argument falls apart. After all, what population flight to Issaquena County would happen should it be the only SNAP sanctuary county?
My comment will be from the Employers side of this. 54% labor force partition rate may or may not be correct. Ending handouts will be the answer to a lot of labor shortages. We are an agriculture based state and technology has changed that industry so those in the Ag business are seeing what the other side of the business workforce are experiencing. A dumbed down work force. I have employed able bodied young people and paid them quite well I shall say, higher than Union wages in my craft, yet they still have told me hard work is not their cup of tea. It’s either too hot or too cold or too wet. Many can barely write or sign their names in a form of penmanship that can be read. This dumbing down of our population has been going on for a long time and unless we make a change with public education it will not get better. Foreign countries are outpacing us with science, math and technology and that’s why they have low unemployment. Our schools in the public educational system are too hung up trying to entertain a group in our nation and now it’s gotten to be including the transformation of sexes or whatever you want to call it. Had that latter topic been brought up 40 years ago the parents would have physically shut the school down in whatever shape form or fashion they saw it. After all, the parents are the taxpayers and the schools employees are the parents employees. Let’s talk about Private schools and how they are riding the fence line as we speak. The athletic scholarships to obtain entry into a private school for certain groups need to stop. It’s hindering the learning environment in our very well established private schools. I have seen the products of both type of educational systems and I can tell you the public system is so far behind it’s pathetic. This is what makes your workforce either usable or non usable. We have a shrinking population in Mississippi because people see a better way of life outside of the State. We used to roll up our sleeves and go to work when we were young and many of us still do. Many need to pull up their pants and get to work and others need to get out of the house and go to work. I’ve said some things that will trigger folks but the truth is we live in a dumb state and just a few cannot carry the load of a diminished workforce.
Mr. Crawford is plenty old enough to have been around (and involved in government) in the 70s. That's when this state had the Work Incentive Program (WIN). That program required work search, seminar attendance, training and legitimate work availability for all welfare recipients, unless excluded under the regs. Today, there ARE no requirements.
What happened to that program? What happened to the program of the 70s and 80s that required Unemployment Insurance recipients to be available for job referral and to attend Job Search seminars lasting an entire week at the MESC offices throughout the state? The program was JSST - Job Search Skills Training. I'll tell you what happened to them...Members of the state legislature (was Crawford one of them?) were instrumental in killing those programs. It was deemed insulting to require people to prepare for and accept jobs.
Crawford is also astute enough to know there is not one single Industry in Issaquena County other than a small prison. Is there any wonder that population would decline? Unless you live via transfer payments, what the hell are you going to do there? There is almost no labor force, no jobs and little incentive to change the status quo. What little labor force there is in that county commutes to nearby towns.
And since the demise of the first African American Mayor of a Mississippi town, Unita Blackwell in Mayersville, there are no continuing grants from various foundations and the government to keep the county economy above a level of struggle.
And Crawford continues to willingly misunderstand the Labor Force Participation Rate.
Just cut off the SNAP benefits for everyone who isn’t disabled. The motivation to work will be the growling belly. People who can’t feed their children and need government assistance should lose their children.
This SNAP/EBT abuse is ridiculous. You have illegal aliens claiming no income and drawing thousands of dollars for their anchor babies they shat out on our side of the border.
You have lazy urban democrats who have no issue with buying the latest smartphone, the flashiest cars, and the most expensive hair extensions, demanding that the taxpayer buy their food too?
Bullshit!
I understand that leaders don’t like seeing the riots that urban democrats resort to when they don’t get their way. I don’t care if they burn down their own neighborhoods. Just don’t prosecute law abiding citizens for banding together against looters.
Thankfully Kyle Rittenhouse proved we can legally shoot violent looters.
Obama tried this. Recipients had to work a certain number of hours, maybe 20, to keep benefits. Federal and state institutions were the chosen ones. Janitors, cafeteria assistants, dishwashers; low level positions. The few that were used in a cafeteria were awful. They did not want to be forced to work for what they thought they deserved to get. They broke dishes, tasted the food off the prep lines, stole containers of food, took food off trays, tore up equipment, dropped the cook’s special knives and other utensils behind wall dividers ( cleaners found them on Saturday) were surly and very unpleasant to be around. Screamed race every time they were asked to do something or not to do something that was breaking health department regulations. After 2 weeks the extra help was declined, much to the relief of the other employees.
Thank you for the reality check, though I suspect many will deny the accuracy.
Reliable transportation is rarely considered though public transportation, even where it exists the routes are limited and don't likely go to an industrial area even if there is one.
But, the most compelling is unwillingness to face the reality that though someone may "look" able bodied and employable, doesn't mean they are.
First of all, there are some absolutely beautiful and handsome humans with serious learning disabilities. There are any number of diseases and infirmities that aren't visible. You cannot see organ diseases, failures or dysfunction. Then there is mental illness. So, there are indeed, people who cannot work and YOU wouldn't hire them or want to work with them.
And, if you choose not to have adequate educational programs so that all those with disabilities can learn trades or if you don't have adequate treatment programs for those with mental disorders and you don't want to teach sex education or allow abortion, you are just increasing the problem.
No doubt many of the people in this sad situation had parents who had been held back in school (or whose parents kept them out to work on the farm or around the house or because they didn't want their children to think/know their parents weren't smart. More often that is expressed as not wanting their children to " grow up to think they're smarter than their own Momma or Daddy", or "I'm doing alright, and I didn't finish school").
You don't want these kids to learn how much a baby too early in life affects their future and how to prevent that other than to have them ignore their raging hormones and make a promise to Daddy. You hate that " the poor get children" and then you hate those children when they get into trouble and don't succeed.
Let me assure you, the financially secure can get their daughter an abortion. They can buy a plane ticket and pay for lodging at the destination. They could and did do that in the '50's and '60's even when the daughter would need a visa or passport. And in medieval times with herbs or the skin of animals. In the '60's, I knew some of these girls. The smartest girls can research that which is a bit dangerous if you don't get the portions right or get properly cleaned herbs.
You probably did know girls just like this if you are in your 70's but in rural Mississippi and your small towns, this was a well-guarded secret that happened during "vacations" or " a death in the family elsewhere". As for me, I was just a trusted friend who still hasn't told.
What I can tell is that one girl who was a popular cheerleader but from working class Catholic family, scraped together the money for an illegal abortion. The "secret" was out when she became infected and had to have a complete hysterectomy at age 17. She remains unmarried. She was very pro-choice until her nervous breakdown when made friends with another patient in the hospital psych ward who became a charismatic preacher whose meds do quiet the voices he hears. But she's in another state where the towns are 10's of thousands and the cities are millions. Her hometown as well as the state are populated with people from " somewhere else", and they haven't a clue. Just like you don't know here.
So, I hope I added to the "reality check" but I doubt it. Some of you just don't want to believe it and truly believe most of your friends were virgins when they married or married the guy who took their virginity. Just like you believe you can tell if a woman's a virgin by her hymen breaking and there being bleeding. What ignorance! Even in medieval times the brides of Kings knew how to get around that one!
The enduring legacy of Lyndon Johnson will forever be:
1. A role in the Kennedy assassination
2. The Vietnam war
3. (I'll clean this one up a bit) - An accurate pledge to increase and maintain democrat voters. He guaranteed one-hundred years of it. A more accurate guess would be five-hundred.
A lot of these programs need to undergo what the IT department calls a "scream test". Shut-off all access and see who starts screaming.
Give them a little notice so no one goes hungry, but make them resubmit and qualify for benefits -- including proof that they are still alive and are not double-dipping someone else's share.
You'll also be able to see who is able bodied. Anyone who can stand all day, holding a sign and yelling about fairness, can stock shelves at Kroger.
If you’re 5’3” and 300 pounds then taxes aught not pay for your bags of fudge rounds.
It’s a damn shame.
He picked a county of 1300 people. The least populated county east of the Mississippi and 3rd least populated overall. Maybe he should have used a different county. Issaquena is one giant ag field with some bottomland. The principal source of income from the county is farming and rich dudes with $500k-$1mm buy in share clubs. Simply no reason for anyone to live there beyond the minimum to operate farm equipment and to work at the silos. It’s just a poor county to use to make your point. Issaquena has roughly the same square miles as Pike county which has 45k people. Issaquena is just a terrible county to use as an example for anything. Like someone else said, do Hinds
August 27, 2023 at 10:19 AM, is a bot.
Just have them pick up trash along side the roads where they live. And other stuff ..im sure there's plenty they can do around their towns..they county workers can supervise a small crew
Wow ! .
Fromt the Issaquenna County labor force to "hymen breaking" ... all within ten posts ... Lord Have Mercy.
Cherry picking is the hallmark of yellow journalism.
And ironically enough, statistically if you wanted to evade the entire COVID 19 pandemic anywhere in the USA, Issaquena County was THE place to be.
People shouldn’t have to work if they don’t want too. Right now we just have to hold out long enough for AI and automation to take over production of all our needs. I believe UBI, universal healthcare, and free housing are the short term answers. It shouldn’t be more than another decade. Watch any YouTube video about John Deer ag equipment. It’s all GPS controlled right now. The farmer just sits in the air conditioned cab and looks at YouTube videos (or porn) while his combine does the work itself.
@11:42 and @9:05
He’s told you where to find the data. Are you too lazy to do your own research to form your opinion? That’s work (not much work), but it’s easies to just get it all pre-digested from Fox News.
People who cannot afford children without government assistance should lose their children? You moron. Then who will pay for those children? The government, I.e. our tax dollars.
I work in a building on Capital Street , I see 900 people everyday walking around downtown in their pajamas or have their pants pulled so far down their nasty underwear is protruding out. Most are headed to the federal building for a shot at the handouts in SSA office, 5’-3”, 300 lbs eating fudge rounds, no truer words ever spoken.
The most addictive drug in the world is free money and when it comes from an invisible source it's poison becomes that much worse. Making people do things in this country is almost impossible, even when it's for their and societies own benefit. You can't make people work.
Additionally, you can forget trying to put the welfare genie back in the bottle. This country would be completely destroyed if you took away one penny of SNAP or other benefits from the takers.
Bottom line is we have a segment of the population that cannot be controlled except through force and America does not have the stomach to take the medicine a healing would require.
Depopulate Mississippi. It's happened before with the great migration. Wait-Im sorry - these people left Mississippi and the deep south in order to work and make better lives for themselves. They left for better jobs and opportunities in the north and west. Maybe now they can leave for more government checks.
If their benefits were cut off, most would find a job. Benefits paid by taxpayers allow them to have shelter, food and other necessities of life while being able to lie on the couch each day getting their news from “The View”. Democrats understood that a welfare state makes it possible to enslave part of the population. The benefits are as addictive as drugs.
It's amazing, all the hell being raised about their “tax dollars” being given to people that may actually need it. But quiet as a church mouse about their “tax dollars” that has made the military industrial complex wealthy, and every former politician that voted for its funding. Must be a special kind of people.
Y’all just mad cause your politicians give handouts to certain individuals that say they need help all while lining their pockets! This shigity has been going on for generations for the same families as the booking sheets in the county jails ( same families getting government handouts for generations well known to local authorities for the wrong reasons)!
If your parents and grandparents lived in government subsidized housing and received benefits for more than a year the money/help must stop with you! Someone in your family must break that cycle.
Felons should not get government assistance, that is why we have a revolving door in prisons. Same families in and out of jail/prison all their lives.
Dang, you got people living better than the people at DHS that certify the handouts!
4:18 - I rarely, if ever, quote or post Bible verses, but this one seems an appropriate response to your post.
2 Thessalonians chapter 3:10
@6:17
Paul’s not always the best example of Jesus’ teachings. Jesu didn’t ask who was working when he fed the masses with fish and loaves. Must have been the political Paul.
The best way to help the poor is to make them uncomfortable in their own poverty.
Benjamin Franklin
We have made poverty comfortable.
Some farmers in Issaquena County get $1 million a year in "benefits and there are dozens or more farmers who receive that much". The average SNAP benefit is $241 a month for an entire household. Just a couple of farmers in Issaquena County get as much in benefits as the entire county would receive if every person was on SNAP. The farmers do not do any physical work at all for it and there are no requirements placed on them.
@ 6:17, I not only quote the Christian Bible, but I do my very best to live it. That being said, let's start with Matthew 25:35 for Jesus' take on it. Then James 2:16, and 1John 3:17. There are many more that agree with the few I used.
Jesus, and the rest of the Christian Bible, had much to say about how those that have, treat those that have not.
It also has much to say about those that judge others to condemnation, and there's plenty of that posted on this board. James 2:13 says that GOD will have judgement without mercy on those that have shown no mercy. Neighbor, I need mercy, but you carry on how you see fit.
9:27 there is a difference between unable and unwilling
This is called a Type II Error in statistics. Your sample population is too small to generalize conclusions to the population.
9:27 - Please provide the book, chapter and verse of any Biblical admonition that 'we' are to provide for those who CAN but will not provide for themselves.
Correct me if I'm wrong (I'm sure you will), but the Bible does not command or even suggest that able bodied and capable people should be cared for or gifted with the largess of others or that 'mercy' should be extended to those who are able, yet unwilling.
If, on the other hand, YOU are willing to leave your doors unlocked, your worldly goods on display for public use and retrieval, your tools and automobiles available for the use of others and your accounts open to all comers....have at it.
August 27, 2023 at 10:38 AM
Exactly correct.
August 28, 2023 at 3:53 AM
+100,000
Now, just who are you going to believe, government statistics or your lyin’ eyes.
Free advice to my many Issaquena County friends languishing in poverty--
MOVE.
August 28, 2023 at 3:53 AM, straw man approach, why are you addressing me, and not the scriptures I posted? I'm not the author of those scriptures. I responded to a scripture, with scripture, but you addressed me. You believe, and practice, whatever your conscience, if you have one, decides, and I will do the same.
I find it hypocritical that you have a problem with someone that may not deserve help, from your “tax dollars” getting help, but no problem at all with those same “tax dollars” making billionaires more wealthy while murdering innocent women, and children.
10:33 - I am saddened that you 'have that problem'. You have no idea what I have or don't have a problem with, since we've not discussed your diversion.
Come back when you can tell us what YOUR bible instructs as to providing for the slovenly, the lazy and the willingly non-productive.
I watched a well fed 4’6” male and his 4’2” female companion buy a shopping cart full of food entirely with that SNAP card that is adorned with magnolias. Must have been $300 worth of groceries. All I bought was a box of trash bags so I was able to walk out of the store see them loading up a very new looking Tahoe. It’s a damn shame. I guess you can easily afford a $70k SUV when you get your food for free from the taxpayer!
August 28, 2023 at 6:55 PM, you must have a problem comprehending what I posted. I don't have a problem, I also don't have a bible.
It appears that someone not preforming to your standard is a bit of an obsession for you. Perhaps you should seek a professional in the mental health field for some help. If you weren't so spiritually ignorant, I would tell you to pray about it.
"Least populated county east of the Mississippi". Hell that sounds great to me. I personally don't understand why more people aren't flocking to Issaquena County.
August 29 @ 11:17 - The heartbreak of losing a debate is tough, ain't it? lol
I'd suggest that such challenges become less "challenging" when those who can work but choose not to because of "benefits" are faced with a different choice: if you want to eat, get to work.
To be clear, any just society would and should help, within reason, those who truly, withing reason, need it, especially children and the elderly who spent much of their life working, but any society that incentivizes healthy-enough-to-work working-age adults to choose not to work is heading in an unsustainable direction.
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