Contact: Harriet Laird
STARKVILLE, Miss.---Mississippians have regained much of the consumer confidence they had lost this past spring, when the Gulf Coast oil spill adversely affected residents' views of the state's economy.
The Mississippi State-based "Economy Watch" business forecast shows those surveyed in September have a renewed outlook in the third quarter of the year, with overall confidence increasing 4 percent to stand at 77 percent. This improvement comes after a 4 percent drop to 73 percent in the second quarter.
Becky Smith, editor of the online publication and instructor in the MSU College of Business, said the Gulfport-Biloxi area is the slowest at regaining confidence, especially when looking at current conditions.
"While Mississippians' confidence in current conditions has been relatively stable for the past three quarters, an exception is Gulfport-Biloxi where a decrease of 17 percent can be seen in that specific location," she explained.
Statewide, third quarter survey results reveal there is less than a 1 percent change in current conditions, which stand now at 75.79 percent. Second quarter results were at 76.4 percent, and the first quarter recorded 75.8 percent.
The most significant gain, according to Smith, is in future expectations, which gained 6.3 percent in the third quarter to 77.82 percent.
"This is in contrast to the previous second quarter loss of 6.7 percent, indicating that residents are expecting economic improvement," she said. "Even on the Coast, increases as high as 21 percent are expected."
Of the 457 respondents to the MSU Survey Research Laboratory phone interview, 22 percent believe business conditions will improve next year. This is an increase of almost 8 percent from the second quarter results of 14.6 percent. Also, 16 percent of interviewees expect good times in Mississippi's economy in the next five years, compared to 8.7 percent in the second quarter.
"Economy Watch" is supported by BankPlus and Entergy Mississippi. For more information about this quarter's results, visit www.economywatch.msstate.edu.