JACKSON -- Unless the economy goes back into nosedive, state revenue for the current budget  year, which started July 1, is projected to finally surpass the amount collected in fiscal year 2008.

The state is projected to collect $4.94 billion this year compared to $4.937 billion in 2008. It is amazing that it is taking the state at least five years to return to revenue levels the state enjoyed before the Great Recession hit.

That trend in revenue collections is unprecedented in Mississippi. Normally, in Mississippi revenue collections from year to year show  slow, but steady growth.

More disturbing is that according to state Economist Darrin Webb Mississippi "has roughly the same number of people employed in 2012 as it did in the mid-90s."