Forrest County, Mississippi

• White (non-Hispanic) 43,656 55.8%
• Hispanic or Latino (any race) 3,428 4.4%
• Black or African American (non-Hispanic) 27,783 35.5%
• Asian (non-Hispanic) 691 0.9%
• Two or more races (non-Hispanic) 2,357 3.0%
• American Indian / Alaska Native (non-Hispanic) 50 0.1%
• Native Hawaiian / Pacific Islander (non-Hispanic) 165 0.2%
• Some other race (non-Hispanic) 142 0.2%

• Under 18 17,773 22.7%
• 18–24 13,010 16.6%
• 25–44 20,238 25.9%
• 45–64 16,500 21.1%
• 65 and over 10,751 13.7%

Median household income

$49,352

90% interval $46,054–$52,650

−$9,949 vs MS · 51st of 82

Below poverty line

21.4%

90% interval 17.4%–25.4%

+3.6 pp vs MS · 29th of 82

Unemployment (12-mo)

3.5%

−0.27 pp vs. state

County GDP

$4.8B

3.06% of state

Avg. annual pay

$54,252

Establishments

2,046

• Education & health services 14,276 36.6%
• Trade, transportation & utilities 6,632 17.0%
• Leisure & hospitality 5,097 13.1%
• Manufacturing 3,408 8.7%
• Professional & business services 3,355 8.6%
• Public administration 2,059 5.3%
• Financial activities 1,304 3.3%
• Construction 358 0.9%
• Information 24 0.1%

The sectors listed cover 93.6% of covered employment; BLS withholds the rest to avoid disclosing individual employers.

Home ownership

57.2%

−12.8 pp vs MS · 76th of 82

Median gross rent

$972

+$18 vs MS · 11th of 82

Owner-occupied

17,224

Renter-occupied

12,903

• Concentrated

  Top three sectors employ 67% of the county workforce. Most panelists likely share employer relationships within these sectors, surface those connections early in voir dire before any institutional-defendant or sector-specific framing.

• Moderate wage spread

  Highest-paid sector (Education & health services, $63,872/yr) pays 3.1× the lowest (Leisure & hospitality, $20,415/yr). Expect meaningful income variation across the panel.

• Institutional employer scale

  Average establishment employs 19 workers, typical of an institutional-employer economy where large hospitals, plants, schools, and government agencies dominate. Expect many panelists to share an employer rather than work for themselves.

• Republican 16,579 58.2%
• Democratic 11,475 40.3%
• Other / third-party 412 1.4%

• Spanish 1,714 2.3%
• Chinese 258 0.4%
• Vietnamese 202 0.3%
• Arabic 108 0.1%
• Russian, Polish, or other Slavic 79 0.1%
• French, Haitian, or Cajun 59 0.1%
• Tagalog 43 0.1%
• German or other West Germanic 7 0.0%

Households

30,127

Family households

18,738

62.2% of households

Married couples w/ children

5,014

26.8% of families

Single-mother families

2,956

15.8% of families

Veterans

3,864

6.4% of civilians 18+

• Evangelical Protestant 37,947 48.6%
• Mainline Protestant 5,977 7.6%
• Catholic 4,683 6.0%
• Black Protestant 4,532 5.8%
• Other (non-Christian + minor traditions) 2,616 3.3%
• Orthodox 28 0.0%

Health insured

88.9%

±1.3 pp

Uninsured

11.1%

±1.3 pp

45th of 82

With a disability

19.2%

±1.3 pp

44th of 82

Bachelor's or higher

30.6%

±2.1 pp

+5.5 pp vs MS · 7th of 82

Uninsured, under 65 (2024)

12.0%

90% interval 10.7%–13.3% · Census SAHIE

The under-65 uninsured rate is not comparable to the ACS insurance figures, which cover all ages.

Trial court

12th Circuit Court District

Judges

3 (Circuit Court judges per district (general civil + felony criminal jurisdiction); Chancery Court judges (equity matters, separate 20 Chancery Court Districts) and limited-jurisdiction County Court judges are not counted here. Vintage 2026 courts.ms.gov; statutory judgeship allocations are set district-by-district in Miss. Code § 9-7-3 et seq. Counts for the smallest rural districts (22nd, 23rd) are approximate and may reflect single-judgeship statutory allocations.)

Court seats

Hattiesburg, New Augusta

This judicial district spans multiple counties.

Traffic fatalities

27

44.63 per 100k adults (18+)

Fatal crashes

25