What impressed us most about the talks we had with members of the Chamber of Commerce concerning the cost of living in Starkville was their genuine interest in finding out about the students’ grievances.
John Mitchell, president of the Chamber said, “We are vitally concerned with what goes on at the college, and we realize the future of the town depends mainly upon what happens out at the college.” He said most of the merchants in Starkville agreed with him.
Students we interviewed had four major gripes: The high price of gasoline, the high price of milk, the high price of water and the high price of groceries in general.
Mr. Mitchell informed us that milk prices were set for various trade areas by a State commission, and Starkville as a system of taxation with regard to the water system. Evidently sewage tax and the costs of installing new water systems are all incorporated in the monthly water bills for the area.
Dr. Louis O’Quinn of the Business Research Department gave us permission to publish the following article regarding grocery prices.
Groceries
“I keep hearing that the cost of living in this town or that in Mississippi is higher than in any other place in the United States—or some such. It is mainly the prices of groceries that are so high-or so it is said. There is often the further implication that someone recently made a study. Etc. Etc. Right now some such story is going around about Starkville.
Grocery prices are not “out of line” in any place in Mississippi. How such an erroneous notion got abroad in the State, I just cannot imagine.
No detailed studies have been made on the cost of living in general and on the prices of groceries in particular in Mississippi towns. But, being a professional economist, and an ex-chain-grocery-store merchant, I pay particular attention to such-keep right up.
As at the moment Starkville is, so the story goes, the highest-cost-of-living town, especially by way of the prices of groceries being much higher than elsewhere, I shall take Starkville as an example. I myself make all of the family purchases of groceries. In the main, I buy here in Starkville.
Every three or four months, when I happen to be in Columbus, waiting for my wife to shop for clothes, etc., I go to a large chain store there and spend some $30 on groceries in large part just to keep up with what is going on in the trade. I watch rather closely grocery prices in Jackson and Memphis by reading the weekly advertisements in the newspapers. And, once or twice each year, when I happen to be in Memphis, I visit one or two supermarkets-just to keep up with the course of the grocery business in cities.
Grocery prices in Starkville are “in line.” When I go to the grocery store in Columbus, I purchase mainly the items that I find ‘better buys’ there than in ‘my’ store in Starkville- really stock up on those items.
I find that, by way of such selective buying, I save $1.50 to $2.00 on a $30 lot-as compared with what I would pay at “my” store in Starkville. And I am sure that one living in Memphis (which is a wholesale and warehouse center thus could get his family groceries over a year at three-to-five percent less than he would have to pay for the same groceries in Starkville- although he would probably have to spend considerable time and money driving about shopping.”
