ARTICLE REPRINTED FROM MISSISSIPPI BUSINESS JOURNAL
By Jack Weatherly
Madison County is the best place in Mississippi for small businesses, according to a new survey.
The county ranks first in SmartAsset’s second annual report.
Returns for small businesses in Madison for the most recent survey were 58.12.on the index created by SmartAsset, compared with 58.39 in the previous
year.
Second was Lafayette County,rated at 52.12, compared with 44.94 in 2019.
After those two, the best in 2020 were, in order: Humphreys, Adams, Marion, Noxubee, Lamar, Lincoln, Leflore and Covington.
Madison (city of Madison, Ridgeland and Canton and others) and Lafayette (Oxford) rank 267th and 589th in the nation, respectively.
Still, the survey reflects the fact that Madison is usually the leading county in the state in terms of income, and that Oxford is among the top micropolitan
areas in the United States.
But it also reflects the fact that the Magnolia State is perennially the poorest state in the nation.
Joey Deason, executive director of the Madison County Economic Development Authority cited small-business success stories.
One is Musee, maker of “bath bombs” which occupies the 45,000-square-foot former home Mississippi Film Studios, which closed in 2017.
Another is Debeukelaer, which makes cookies that is ships worldwide, Deason said.
Deason acknowledges Mississippi’s low per capita income ranking. As of 2019, the U.S, Bureau of Economic Analysis ranked Madison as 1,330th among 3,113
counties in the nation, he said.
That means the county ranked just behind Santa Barbara County, Calif., and Sonoma County, Calif., he noted.
