Something remarkable has happened here in Mississippi. The state that for most of the last century sat at the bottom of nearly every American economic table has, quietly, pulled ahead of the United Kingdom in GDP per capita. Last week, Governor Tate Reeves highlighted the fact on X in his characteristically Southern style – and the post went viral.
It is a moment worth pausing over — and worth understanding because what Mississippi has achieved over the past five years is not an accident or down to luck. It is the product of a deliberate, sustained program of free-market reform that few governments successfully deliver.
I first noticed that Mississippi was overtaking Britain in terms of output per person back in 2023 and wrote about it for both The Atlantic and The Sunday Times. The reaction from British commentators at the time was a familiar scramble for excuses — purchasing power parity adjustments, Ukraine, COVID — anything, in fact, other than the policy choices Britain itself had been making for 30 years.
Now the claim that Mississippi has overtaken the U.K. is no longer disputed. A new report from the Institute of Economic Affairs last week asked British voters to guess where the U.K. would rank among America’s 50 states on GDP per capita. On average, they placed their country seventh. In reality, as the report showed, the U.K. ranks 51st — dead last, below every single U.S. state, including Mississippi. More than a quarter of respondents said they felt “shocked” when shown the truth. Alas, facts do not care about British feelings.
I am glad Governor Reeves has now put the spotlight on this again. But to me, the more interesting question is not how far Britain has fallen. It is how far Mississippi has climbed.
For most of the last 100 years, the Magnolia State always seemed to be last. Our per capita income was the lowest in the Union. Serious investment passed us by. But recent years have seen a decisive shift.
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In 2021, Mississippi passed meaningful labor market reform, making it easier for people to work, train, and switch careers. In 2022, we replaced an old tax code with flat tax reform – a clear signal that Mississippi had stopped apologizing for letting people keep more of what they earn.
Year after year, we have kept our energy among the most affordable in the country — a quiet advantage that every family and every employer benefits from. As other parts of the world that embraced aggressive renewable energy policies grapple with rising costs, Mississippi’s more measured energy approach is looking increasingly wise.
In 2024, we passed education funding reform that finally lets the money follow the child, putting more of it into the classroom. In 2025, we took the historic step of passing legislation to eliminate the state income tax altogether — a policy that only a few years earlier had been dismissed as impossible. And in 2026, we have begun cutting through the thicket of red tape that has held back our healthcare sector for too long.
No single one of these reforms was enough by itself to turn the state around, but together, this package of free-market reforms is enough to lift the trajectory of an entire state. And these reforms compound. Labor market liberalization makes tax reform more potent. Lower taxes make affordable energy more valuable. Better schools raise the human capital on which all of it depends. This is what a real politics of growth looks like — not a single heroic leap, but a steady accumulation of practical wins, year after year.
This is why our numbers have moved. It is why they will keep moving.
If you want to know why Britain is floundering, imagine what Mississippi might be like if we had had Bernie Sanders in charge for the past 20 years. Taxes there are too high. Regulation is intrusive. Immigration is out of control. Energy costs are sky-high. Britain has been run by a succession of Bernies, and it’s been a disaster.
Mississippi shows the alternative. The policies that lifted this state from the bottom of the American table are not secret. They are practical, proven, and available to any government willing to pursue them with the courage and patience they require.
The world is starting to notice Mississippi’s success. So should we.
Douglas Carswell is the president and CEO of the Mississippi Center for Public Policy and a former member of the British Parliament.
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