DISPATCHES FROM TRUDEAUPIA: Out of nowhere, Canada became poorer than Alabama. How is that possible?
Alabama's unemployment rate is 2.7%. Canada's is 6.5%.
Alabama now manufactures nearly as many cars as Ontario.
How did the one of the poorest states in the US start outcompeting us?
The Globe went down there to find out. The short version: Alabama spent 30 years treating… https://t.co/A3V5q0Z1jJ
— Lucy Hargreaves (@lucyhargreaves4) February 20, 2026
Don’t sweat it, Canadians. The UK is poorer than Mississippi: The Mississippi Question is real, spectacular — and the UK is losing. “It was nine years ago when Fraser Nelson, the editor of The Spectator, first suggested that the U.K. was poorer than any U.S. state but Mississippi. This came as an uncomfortable shock for many in Britain for whom Mississippi, as a byword for backwardness, conjures up clichés about the Deep South. Every time anyone has made the comparison since, there has been an indignant outburst from Britons keen to denounce the data…Last year, by my math, the U.K.’s output per person was the equivalent of $45,485; Mississippi’s was higher, at $47,190. If Britain were invited to join the U.S. as the 51st state, its citizens would be at the bottom of the table for per capita GDP. Some might say that, for Mississippi, that is still disconcertingly close.”