Expungement and the Mississippi Economy

REMI will be joined by Sondra Collins, Ph.D., Senior Economist from the Mississippi Institutions of Higher Learning, on Wednesday, October 9th from 2 to 3 p.m. (ET) to assess Mississippi’s recently enacted Criminal Justice Reform Act in regards to the changes made to expungement policy in the state and examine the corresponding economic growth.

“Expungement and the Mississippi Economy” will evaluate the change in employment and the state’s review as a result of forgiving the criminal records of a select group of past offenders and making more citizens eligible to work.

Mississippi’s House Bill 1352 went into effect on July 1st and the legislation includes several provisions that significantly alter the future of criminal justice procedures in the state. The bill expands expungement for misdemeanors, while also allowing people charged with misdemeanors to await trial at home, enabling those with drug convictions to receive public services like workforce training and nutrition assistance, and pushing back the payment of supervision fees for people released on parole or probation to 60 days.

In an article published by WLBT 3 in Mississippi, the state’s Governor Phil Bryant spoke about the bill, saying, “If people don’t believe Mississippi can be innovative, let them look to criminal justice reforms.”

Gov. Bryant also mentioned that, “You will see new opportunities with our community colleges, new opportunities in workforce development, new opportunities at a federal level very soon that will continue the work that Mississippi began.”

Here at REMI, we recognize the importance of this policy decision on many Americans and want to help advance the conversation through meaningful economic impact analysis.

You can access the article published by WLBT 3 by clicking here.

REMI Working with Local Community

Regional Economic Models, Inc. recently collaborated with Great Threads Embroidery from Belchertown, Massachusetts to embroider our logo on gifts for attendees of this year’s REMI Users’ Conference in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

The Daily Hampshire Gazette in Northampton, Massachusetts covered Great Threads as a part of their larger story detailing a complex, the Belchertown State School, that could potentially become a coworking space after initially being constructed as an institution for children with developmental disabilities before being shut down in 1992.

REMI is proud to partner with Great Threads, which was one of the first businesses to occupy the building that could become a coworking space. The Belchertown Cultural Council hopes to bring more small businesses to the complex in order to “expand the offerings in Belchertown right now.”

The article includes pictures of Great Threads Embroidery owner Gary Ewing, the engraving process, and the finished lunchboxes for the 2019 REMI Users’ Conference. You can access the Daily Hampshire Gazette article by clicking here.

You can also find more information about this year’s REMI Annual Users’ Conference by clicking here.

SALT Deductions: Population Increase Expected in Florida

The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) of 2017 adjusted the threshold for state and local tax (SALT) deductions, which created an incentive for workers in high-tax states to consider moving to a state with lower taxes. For example, “individuals earning over $650,000 can save more than $69,700 in taxes per year by moving from New York to Florida.”

This type of high-tax to low-tax migration was the focus of an article published by Fox Business that covered the population estimates expected for Florida as long as provisions of the TCJA remain in effect. Florida ranks first in highest number of out-of-state movers to relocate since the legislation was enacted and experts believe those numbers will exceed 300,000 new citizens per year over the next three years.

According to researchers, that amount of increase in population is “analogous to adding a city slightly larger than Orlando every year.” REMI Senior Economist Peter Evangelakis, Ph.D. analyzed the implications of changes made to state tax codes shortly after the TCJA was signed into law during his webinar presentation, “SALT Substitute: States Respond to New Tax Law.”

You can read Fox Business’s full article on the demographic impact of changes to SALT deductions by clicking here.

You can access the presentation slides and a recording of Dr. Evangelakis’s webinar by clicking below.

Presentation Slides / Webinar Recording

Canadian Immigration Seen as Role Model for Integration

The Wall Street Journal covered a report recently released by Canada’s Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) that highlighted the country’s immigration system as a role model for other developed nations. The report states that, although still flawed, the Canadian immigration system better integrated immigrants in terms of health, citizenship, and employment rates.

The OECD also commended the country’s immigration program for doing well in regards to balancing the number of economic migrants with those from other immigration streams to serve a mixture of economic, demographic, and humanitarian objectives. Their report acknowledges that Canada’s immigration system is “highly reactive” to new developments and changes in migration policy, with a higher preference for evidence-based alterations than other industrialized countries.

This report was conducted due to looming concerns about restrictive changes to immigration policy in the United States and several European nations. Business Roundtable utilized the REMI model to complete a 50-state analysis of The Economics of Immigration Policies, assessing two scenarios for the future of migration in this country.

You can access the article on the Canadian immigration system by the Wall Street Journal by clicking here.

You can read the full report on the impact of national immigration policies prepared by the Business Roundtable by clicking here.

Dr. Adam Rose from USC’s Research Quoted in Recent Resiliency Podcast

On July 9th, the National Public Radio Planet Money podcast broadcasted a segment entitled “Is LA Ready for a Big Earthquake?” that featured the research of expert economic modeler Adam Rose, Ph.D. from the Price School of Public Policy at the University of Southern California.

Dr. Rose’s analysis detailed the potential impacts of a major earthquake in the Los Angeles area, noting that although a large disaster would likely cause a recession in the region, the resilience of its economic sectors should keep the deficits from reaching previous estimates. This analysis was conducted for a METRANS study that Dr. Rose worked on alongside his colleague Dan Wei, Ph.D. and Ohio State University Assistant Professor Zhenua Chen, Ph.D. in order to better comprehend the impacts of major disruption events.

This podcast segment was influenced by the recent earthquakes in Southern California, and you can listen to the entire broadcast by clicking here.