State’s economy grew 2.4% for 2012
Manufacturing rebound cited
JACKSON — With manufacturing on the rebound, Mississippi’s economy grew by 2.4 percent in 2012, new figures show.
Gross domestic product numbers released Thursday by the federal Bureau of Economic Analysis try to measure all of the economic output of each state. They look at all the money that businesses, private individuals and governments spend on goods and services. Investment and foreign trade are also included in the totals.
Mississippi’s 2012 growth rate was close to the national average of 2.5 percent, and ranked 17th among the 50 states. That was a marked improvement from 2011, when Mississippi’s economy shrank by 1.1 percent, one of only five states to contract.
“We began to see some pretty significant growth in 2012 for the first time since the recession,” said state economist Darrin Webb.
The BEA revised the 2011 data downward from the original reading of a 0.8 percent contraction, indicating that the economy was in worse shape that it appeared at first. Webb emphasized that the 2012 numbers are preliminary and could also change.
Mississippi’s economy totaled more than $100 billion for the first time. It remained 0.7 percent of the total U.S. economy of $15.6 trillion.
Mississippi retained the lowest per-capita gross domestic product of any state, at $28,944 per person. That number is a measure of the general wealth of the economy, said BEA’s Cliff Woodruff, but is not a measure of actual wages or incomes.
North Dakota’s oil boom pushed it to 13.4 percent growth, the fastest in the nation, while Connecticut’s economy shrank by 0.1 percent, the only state to see recession. Mississippi grew faster than the Southeastern average, but trailed Tennessee’s 3.3 percent growth.
Federal figures show the biggest contributor to growth in Mississippi last year came from makers of durable goods such as cars and ships. Nearly 30 percent of the state’s growth came from
His wife, Jenny Doyle, received 20 votes to claim a seat on the five-member board. She is joined by Tammy Patrick, Beverly Thomas and Vicky Waddey. Incumbent Ray Denison, the husband of the town’s new mayor, Patti Denison, was also re-elected and rounds out the town’s new board for the next four years.
Pamela Weaver, spokeswoman for Secretary of State Delbert Hosemann, said the tied election in Walls was the second in the state during Tuesday’s general elections. She said the town of Mendenhall, Miss., a small town near Jackson, also had a tied alderman race.
And Mississippi is not alone in resolving tied elections in unusual ways.
Coin tosses have broken ties in New York, Illinois, Wisconsin, Ohio, Missouri, Washington, Florida, Minnesota and New Hampshire in recent years, according to a 2012 article in The Atlantic magazine. South Dakota and Arizona have used card games. In Virginia, the winner has been chosen from a hat, according to the story, “When a State Election Can Be Literally Determined by a Coin Toss” published on Nov. 19, 2012.
Marla Treadway, DeSoto County’s deputy circuit clerk, in charge election matters in the county, said the Walls tied election was the first in a long time in the county.
“It is not something that happens very often around here,” she said.