Thursday, October 3, 2019

Population loss in Mississippi: Issaquena County/Mayersville


It all started here.

Population loss as in major -- 50% or more. 

Source:  Wikipedia (Issaquena CountyMayersville)



Mayersville is the county seat in Issaquena County.  

Population loss by degrees:  80-90%70-79%, 60-69%, 50-59%.



Percentage of population 25 and older with a bachelor's degree:
  •   6.1% - Issaquena County
  • 21.3% - Mississippi
  • 30.9% - U.S.
Percentage of population 65 and older:
  • 16.7% - Issaquena County
  • 15.9% - Mississippi
  • 16.0% - U.S.
% of population living in poverty:
  • 38.1% - Issaquena County
  • 19.7% - Mississippi
  • 11.8% - U.S.

The last time Issaquena County voted for a Republican candidate for president was in 1994.  Clinton received 56.5% of the vote in 2016.  George Wallace received 48.3% of the vote, a plurality, in 1968.

Related reading:
Finding That Elusive One Person in Every 116 Acres in Mississippi. (The New York Times, 3/31/2010)
In 2000, Issaquena, like the rest of the Mississippi Delta area, contained some of the most challenging and undercounted census tracts in the state. This year, as the April 1 target date to return census forms approached, Issaquena was still lagging — only 21 percent of households had returned their forms, compared with 52 percent nationally, according to the running tally on the census Web site, although in many cases the forms have been hand-delivered to people’s homes by census workers. 
Issaquena County and the entire Delta is plagued by poverty and illiteracy. People mistrust census takers for a variety of reasons, including a belief that the government is trying to catch them doing something illegal like misrepresenting the number of people in their household, which could affect benefits like food stamps, said Calvin Stewart, a Rolling Fork alderman, teacher, high school sports referee and spokesman for the town’s new antilitter campaign.

Other Mississippi population loss posts:
Tunica County/Tunica.  (10/2/2019)
Coahoma County/Clarksdale.  (10/2/2019)
Bolivar County/Cleveland.  (10/3/2019)

Population loss series:

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