Reeves stated that “I am an ever optimist” and that he would run an optimistic campaign. He spoke at the Mississippi Republican Party headquarters, Jackson. Reeves has been the lieutenant governor for eight years and is known as the “fiscal watchdog” of the state. He often boasts about his financial background. After a brief career as an analyst in financial investment banking, Reeves entered politics to serve two terms as state treasurer. This background is what drives his campaign messaging. He boasts of Mississippi’s lowest ever unemployment rate, rising wages for Mississippi workers, and the largest-ever tax cuts that he negotiated. Reeves also claims that Mississippians have more than 50,000 job opportunities. Reeves stated that it was difficult to argue that Mississippi isn’t in better shape than eight years ago. “This is why you’re seeing people rally behind our campaign,” Reeves said to Mississippi Today in June. According to an online poll conducted by NBC News/SurveyMonkey in July, the rhetoric reflects the belief of a majority Mississippians that the state’s economy has been doing well. According to a poll by NBC News/SurveyMonkey, more than three-fifths said that the state’s economy is good or fair compared with those who think it is bad or very poor. In reality, Mississippi’s economic recovery from 2008’s recession has been slow. Mississippi Today examined five claims Reeves made about the strength and stability of the state’s economy using federal labor data as well as interviews with Darrin Webb, a state economist. Here is what we found. Reeves claims that “Mississippi today is home to more people than ever before in its history.” Today, there are 1,180,000 people in Mississippi. This is why many places, like ours, face the greatest challenge of finding skilled workers. Fact check: Let’s first address Reeves’ assertion that Mississippians are working harder than ever. The federal data sets you use will reveal the truth. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Mississippians were employed by 1.17 million companies in July 2019. This is a record-breaking number of jobs. This is because Mississippi’s current working-age population of 2.3 million is the largest it has ever been. When you look at the population growth over the past three decades, it is clear that there are fewer jobs today as a percentage of the workforce than in 16 of the last 29. Reeves’ figure is based on a survey of employers that reports how many workers they have. If a person has two jobs, it’s counted twice. It doesn’t include Mississippians who are out-of-state. The “jobs report” data set also excludes farm jobs which is a decreasing portion of Mississippi’s labor force. Economists who study the activity in the job market prefer this measurement. Labor participation is another state-reported data set. It counts the actual number of people living in each household. This could also include those who work in other states and are not included in the employer survey. Reeves’ claims are not supported by the labor-participation data. It shows that Mississippians were more active in the labor-participation data during the early and mid 2000s, even though the state’s population is much smaller than it was in July 2019. According to the BLS data, 55.6 percent of Mississippi’s workforce participation rate is lower than it was in nearly every year since 1976. This excludes 2018 (55.6%), 2015 (55.6%) and 2014 (54.9%). In 2018, Mississippi had the second-lowest workforce participation rate in the country, with West Virginia the last. The labor participation rate in Mississippi reached an all-time high of 63.2 per cent in 1994. It has been declining steadily since then, partly because of the aging population. More than 1.21 million Mississippians were working in July 2019 and 64,819 were looking for work. Despite the state’s lower labor participation rate, its unemployed population is still growing. Only in the late 1970s and early 1990s was the state’s unemployed population as low as 65,000. Reeves stated in the second section of his statement that this was why Mississippi employers have difficulty finding skilled workers. This could also be due to Mississippi’s low educational attainment. Nearly 38 percent in Mississippi did not go to college, compared with 32 percent nationally. “A growing economy means more people are employed. Most economies grow. This means that you have people being born every single day. The economy is always growing. Webb stated that the only times you don’t have as many people employed is when there is a recession or recovery in the economy. Webb said, “But all this, it’s just word games in a sense.” Reeves claimed: “Our economy’s growing and thanks to people such as you and facilities like ours today, we are creating tens and thousands of new jobs.” The average monthly employment in 2018 was 60,000. This was in 2012, when Reeves was in control of the Senate. It was still recovering from the recession. According to the annual averages of employer survey data, Mississippi has nearly 8500 more jobs than in 2007. The working-age population increased by 123,241 between 2007 and 2010, so job growth has been far slower than population growth since the recession. From 2007 to 2010, Mississippi lost 61.800 jobs. Since then, Mississippi has seen modest increases of between 0 percent and 1.2 percent each year, including 0.3 percentage in 2018. This was lower than any other state, with the exceptions of Alaska, Connecticut, and Vermont. Reeves campaign claimed that the Taxpayer Pay Raise Act of 2016, which was he championed “has incentivized companies to locate here and bring job opportunities with them as well as an environment of keeping taxes low and reduced debt, as well as keeping taxes low and keeping taxes high, etc.” They also cited two developments: Amazon’s Marshall County fulfillment center will employ 850, and Continental Tire in Hinds County, which plans on hiring 2,500 people by 2028. Webb expects that the preliminary numbers will be adjusted downward in 2019. The state has seen an increase in employment of 1.2 percent so far in 2019. According to official statistics that are subject to revision and based on the number of jobs available, Mississippi has regained the jobs it lost during the recession. It took a while. It was the longest time it had ever taken. Webb stated that it has never taken 10 years for us to get our jobs back. “We haven’t had significant job growth.” In fact, the state has experienced far more job growth over the past decade. Mississippi’s casino industry was a boon when it was legalized in 1990s. It contributed to the highest year-over job growth in 30 years in 1992 (2.4%), 1993 (4.4%) and 1994 (5.3%). Reeves claims: “Those 80,000 people who are working today, guess what? They’re paying income tax. They also pay sales taxes. They have more money and are spending it.” The truth is that Mississippians’ wages have stagnated over the past decade. After adjusting for inflation, Mississippi’s private workers will make about $40 per week less in 2019 than they did in 2009. These inflation-adjusted numbers are known as “real wages”. In 2019, Mississippi’s private employees will earn roughly $40 per week less than in 2009. The average private employee in Mississippi earned $723 per week in July 2019. The Reeves campaign noted that this is nominally less than the $670 per week they earned in 2012, but it is still lower when you consider inflation. Reeves also mentioned the 2016 $150-per-year income tax cut. However, this is not enough to offset the declines in real wage. Over the past decade, Mississippians have earned approximately $120-per-week less in real wage than national workers. However, the gap grew to nearly $190 in 2018. The slow growth of sales tax revenue indicates that Mississippians aren’t “going out spending” at an impressive rate. These collections dropped more than 10 percent during recession and rose 10 percent in 2014. However, they have been slowing down in recent years, only 0.1 percent in 2018 compared to 1 percent in the first half 2019. Reeves: “I would think because of the largest tax reduction in Mississippi history we’re going to be collecting more revenue this year than any other time in our history.” Fact Check: Just like employment growth, the state should always receive more revenue each year. Webb stated that it would be a problem to not collect more revenue each year. The 2019 fiscal year saw collections grow by nearly 4.9 percent, or $277 millions. This was the highest growth rate since 2014 when the state received 5.1 percent more revenue. Growth was slower in the years between. Recent increases are not historical. These increases pale in comparison with the rapid growth Mississippi experienced in the 1990s, when the state enjoyed a boom economy driven by gaming. Some years saw revenues rise by more than 10%. Webb stated that any growth in this year’s revenues should not be attributed the state’s largest tax cut, which included the elimination of the corporate franchise tax. It hasn’t yet taken effect. The state will lose $415 million annually due to the policy cuts, which won’t be fully implemented before 2028. Webb stated that recent growth was due to federal policy changes, which resulted corporations reporting more taxable profits and a Supreme Court ruling allowing states to collect tax on online purchases. This is virtually a new source of revenue for the state. Webb stated that “as a rule, the state government doesn’t have a lot to play in what happens within the economy.” Webb said, “I think politicians get too many credit and too much responsibility because I think that the economy will do what it is supposed to.” Reeves: “Mississippi’s financial position is the best we’ve ever seen…. According to virtually all economic measures, Mississippi is heading in the right direction.” Fact Check: Mississippi’s economy has experienced nominal growth following national trends, but is far behind. The state’s gross domestic products, which is the most comprehensive measure, have not kept pace with real dollars in 2008. Mississippi’s GDP has grown at a fraction of the national rate since 2008, registering a growth rate of 1% in nine years (including declines in 2011-2014). This compares to the steady growth of the nation’s GDP between 1.6 and 2.9% every year since the recession. Reeves also mentioned the record-breaking amount of $554 million that the state’s rainy-day fund had in 2019. “You wanted to know (if) we have recovered. What is your definition of it? What about jobs? According to official statistics, yes,” Webb stated. “In terms GDP? In terms of GDP, we are actually below 2008 levels. Technically, we haven’t recovered in terms GDP.” Adam Ganucheau contributed this report._x000D