FOCUS: #MSWelfare/TANF Scandal • Jackson Water • Abortion • Race & Racism • Policing • Incarceration • Housing & Evictions
Despite being a 38% Black state, the Mississippi Senate has just 12 Black members, who represent 23% of the 52-member body.
Mississippi is one of only three states that has fewer residents now compared to a decade ago, the U.S. Census Bureau revealed today as it announced the first results of the 2020 Census. The Magnolia State officially lost 6,018 residents, or 0.2% of its population, over the 10-year period.
Across Mississippi, more than 41 percent of all renters are cost-burdened, defined by the Department of Housing and Urban Development as paying more than 30 percent of household income toward housing costs and, as a result, having “difficulty affording necessities such as food, clothing, transportation and medical care.” More than one out of every five renter households in Mississippi is extremely cost-burdened, defined as paying more than 50 percent of household income toward housing costs.
Mississippi schools, cities and families stand to lose millions in federal funds if enough residents do not respond to the 2020 Census by the Sept. 30 deadline. U.S. Sen. Roger Wicker warned in a statement earlier this month that the state was “lagging well behind the national response rate.”
Mississippi Journalism and Education Group is a a 501(c)(3) nonprofit media organization (EIN 85-1403937) for the state, devoted to going beyond partisanship and publishing solutions journalism for the Magnolia State and all of its people.
125 S. Congress Street #1324
Jackson, MS 39201
[email protected]
[email protected]
601-362-6121
The Mississippi Free Press is a project of the Mississippi Journalism and Education Group, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit journalism organization (EIN 85-1403937).