According to a poll conducted by NBC News, SurveyMonkey and Mississippi Today on Thursday, Mississippians have a much more pessimistic outlook about their state’s economic situation than those in other Southern states. These results, which were reflected in some the most comprehensive independent polls in the South in years show that 49% of Mississippians consider the state’s economic situation “fairly bad” to “very bad.” This is compared to 28% of those who responded in the wider Southern states poll, who said their state’s economy was “fairly or very bad”. This response rate is 21 percentage points lower that the concern expressed by Mississippians about the economy. Online polls were taken by 1,486 respondents from Mississippi and 4,132 in 11 Southern states. The error estimates for Mississippi results are plus or minus 6.6% and plus/minus 2.4% for the Southern States poll. Another important finding is that, despite concerns about the state’s economy, a strong majority of respondents said they would support higher taxes to fund infrastructure improvements and public education. Concerns about the state’s economic condition indicate that the public is less optimistic than many state leaders. They repeatedly cite indicators of economic progress like the low unemployment rate and the attractiveness of state manufacturing jobs, especially in the auto-related sector. State residents are clearly concerned about the economy. When asked to name their top concerns, 31% chose the economy. Education (13%), and health care (23%), were also on the list. These top concerns are similar to the results of the Southern States poll. Click here to see the NBC News report about the Southern regional poll results. State residents expect their state leaders to address the economic situation. 33 percent said that this should be the top priority of the state government, followed by education (30%) and healthcare (18%). Many state leaders and business groups often link the state’s future economic success to the education of state residents. They believe that a higher educated workforce will be essential for attracting more state jobs. The majority of state government functions have been controlled by Republicans over the past seven years. During that time, elected GOP leaders have praised economic gains and led tax policies which they claim will help the state’s long-term economy. This poll showed a stark difference in opinion between Republicans, Democrats and how they see the state’s economy. Sixty-five per cent of Republicans polled thought the economy was good, while only 33 percent of Democrats agreed. However, 67% of Democrats and 36% of Republicans rated the economy as poor. Governor. Phil Bryant regularly touts the lowest ever state unemployment rate, success in economic development (especially automotive and tire manufacturing) and the number of jobs in Mississippi. Bryant stated to members of the Mississippi Economic Council that it was the lowest level of unemployment in Mississippi’s recent history. “We have 40,000 job openings in this state. “We used to have people searching for jobs, but now there are jobs chasing people.” Mississippi’s unemployment rate fell to 4.5 percent in February. This is the lowest level since data began to be collected. This means that Mississippi’s unemployment rate was 33rd in the country for February. The state has fewer workers than it did in January 2008, when the state was at its peak employment level before the Great Recession. In 2016, the Legislature presented a tax incentive to Continental Tire. The deal included a bond deal and a tax incentive. Continental Tire will invest $1.45 Billion in the state, and it is expected that the plant near Clinton will create 2,500 jobs. Mississippi will issue bonds worth $263 million to the company from Germany. According to an Associated Press estimate, the entire project will cost $600 million, which includes tax incentives. Lt. Gov. Tate Reeves, House Speaker Philip Gunn and the other House Speakers have led numerous tax cuts and tax incentives packages that they believe will benefit the state’s long-term economy. They led efforts to pass the state’s largest tax cut, which eliminated the corporate franchise tax as well as the 3 percent individual income bracket. Reeves stated that the tax cuts had not been intended to increase our revenue. However, he said to reporters in January that he believes they will have that effect in the long-term. “The tax cuts were not about increasing Mississippi’s revenue, although I will tell you that they will in the long term increase our competitiveness in recruiting new businesses for our state and growing our existing business,” Reeves said to reporters in January. However, Mississippi’s economy has been growing modestly over the past three years but slower than any other Southern state or the national average. Darrin Webb (the state economist) told lawmakers that the Great Recession had slowed down the country’s recovery. The state’s growth between 2009 and 2016 was only 1.7 percent, compared to 14.1 percent national growth. The southeast region, except Mississippi, saw a 16.9 percent increase. Our border states saw an 8.2 percent growth. These data are real GDP. If we look at income or employment, we’d see similar patterns of relatively flat growth over seven years.” This poll revealed interesting thoughts among Mississippians about two topics that have been dominated by discussion in the Legislature, among businessmen, and state residents: schools and roads. The 2018 legislative session was dominated by lawmakers focusing on the allocation of additional funds to maintain the state’s roads, bridges and other infrastructure. Sixty-one percent of Mississippians polled said that the state government did a poor job maintaining roads and bridges. Respondents polled by Republicans said that fifty percent thought the state did a poor job and 49 percent said it was doing an excellent job. Only 25% of Democrats said that the state was doing a good job. The outlook of other states is more positive. Only 36% of Mississippi respondents said their state government was doing a good job maintaining bridges and roads. This is a difference of 20 percentage points. Some Republican legislators supported the idea of raising the gasoline tax in order to fund road improvements. However, legislative leaders strongly opposed it. According to the poll, Mississippians were almost two to one willing to pay more taxes to fund infrastructure improvements. 62 percent of Mississippians responded that they would be willing to pay more taxes. 36 percent said no. Surprisingly, only 33% of those who refused to pay higher taxes on infrastructure were Democrats, while 38% were Republicans. Mississippians are more willing to pay higher roads taxes than the South’s response, with 56 percent supporting raising taxes to address infrastructure problems. Rewriting the state’s public school funding formula has been another key issue for Republican leaders over the past two years. After public school leaders and activists questioned whether local school districts would need to increase local taxes in order to compensate for any state funding losses, the Senate failed to approve a new funding formula. The poll found that 60% of Mississippians would pay more taxes to support public schools. Only 37% said no. Similar results were found in the Southern poll, where 57% of respondents said they would pay more taxes to support public schools. According to the Mississippi poll, 50 percent of Republicans and 62% of Democrats said they would pay more taxes to help public education. SurveyMonkey polls were conducted March 12-25, 2018, among a national sample of 15,238 adults (+/- 1.1); a regional sample of 4,132 adults who live in Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia (+/- 2.4); a sample of 1,486 adults who live in Mississippi (+/-4.6); a sample of 1,498 adults who live in Alabama (+/- 4.5); a sample of 2,209 adults who live in Georgia (+/- 3.4); and a sample of 1,710 adults who live in Tennessee (+/- 4.1). The SurveyMonkey platform has nearly three million survey takers each day. This non-probability survey was taken from these respondents. Click here to see the full methodology and results.