Tate Reeves criticized after ‘historic unemployment lows’ comments
One of the last messages Tate Reeves gave in 2023 was based on the economy of Mississippi. Here, he claimed that the state had achieved historic lows in unemployment. This boast was made on his personal Twitter where he cited the news channel WLOX as the source of his claims. Despite this, many users jumped on these comments to highlight other issues in Mississippi regarding working hours and wages which Reeves conveniently missed out.
Specifically, his statement read: ‘Records were made to be broken, and that’s what Mississippi continues to do. With historic lows in unemployment – more Mississippians are working good jobs across the state. More work to do in 2024!’
While these stats may impress some, others weren’t won over. Here, one user named Pete Almeida Jr stated: “So you’re proud of the fact that the state of Mississippi has no state minimum wage and has used the federal minimum wage of 725 which has been the same since 2010, and yet we all know the cost-of-living is much higher. That’s why so many people are leaving the state!”
On a similar note, a user named Nasire added: “I hope the jobs pay more than 10$ hour we can’t support our families. We have to work 2 jobs and still break high taxes. We are struggling the entire state stop posting what might happen make it happen.”
As ever, this is a good example that stats only ever show a glimpse of the bigger picture. While unemployment may be down in Mississippi, it still doesn’t mean that people aren’t struggling.
