If you had $150,000 to spend on a house, where would you live in MS? (Starkville: good schools, price)

[brickpatio]

The comparable Kentucky graph is below. So-called "real" per capita income growth figures discount inflation, which is why this graph below, taking out inflation, shows a much flatter upwards line. All these figures in the graph below, from 1950 to 2009 figures, are listed in year-2000 inflation-adjusted dollars. Note that Kentucky went from roughly $5,000 in 1950 to about $26,000 in 2009. Tennessee's graph shows it going from about $6,000 to $28,000. Mississippi went from about $4,000 to $24,000. They all did well.
Series: KYOI96, Real Per Capita Personal Income in Kentucky

View Data | Download Data | Notify Me of Updates | Add to My Data List | Vintage Series in ALFRED | Map in GeoFRED
Type: Line | Bar | Pie | Scatter Units: Levels | Chg. | Chg. from Yr. Ago | % Chg. | % Chg. from Yr. Ago |

[williboy]

I grew up in Laurel so I certainly have had time to know that part of MS. Move to East Tennessee; you'll be happier.

[Gill O'Blarney]

Originally Posted by poptones

You make a lot of assumptions there. The stats don't sy 30% of children, it says 30% of people. The way you've divided things up assumes both an equal distribution of children per economic strata and an equal distribution of children per household. The stats I quoted were not divided up like this - it was per household. 30 percent of households...

Then why did you earlier say:

[quote=poptones;10286097]according to dhhs, about 20 percent of the state lives below the poverty threshold of ~13.8K. Thirty percent of the children live below that line, which means thirty percent of them get some form of aid. .............."</i>

Com'on now, your stats for the unemployment rate are wrong. (10% instead of 20%). Your stats for poverty are wrong. - You're slamming the state unjustly.

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Originally Posted by poptones

You make a lot of assumptions there. The stats don't sy 30% of children, it says 30% of people. The way you've divided things up assumes both an equal distribution of children per economic strata and an equal distribution of children per household. The stats I quoted were not divided up like this - it was per household. 30 percent of households...

Nope, I've made no assumptions whatsoever. All just statistics from the government. 26% of the population of Mississippi is comprised of children. 30% of the children in Mississippi are below the poverty level, again according to the government figures. So nothing wrong with that computation.

Next computation is to define what percent of Mississippians are children below the poverty level. Nothing wrong with that computation.

No assumptions, just actual statistics.

26% of 3,000,000 = 780,000 total number of children in MS
30% of 780,000 = 234,000 children in MS below the poverty income level
234,000 divided by 3,000,000 = 7.8% of Mississippians are children who live below the poverty income level.

But peace. We both like Mississippi - and we both see problems. I'm moving back there in a couple of months, as soon as I have found and purchased a house in the Brandon area.

Mississippi is many things. The area I'm moving to is indistinguishable from the areas where I've lived in the Atlanta suburbs and elsewhere. Same stores, shopping centers, malls - and the people are much the same.

The real difference is the climate. Summers are even hotter than in Atlanta, where I spent 18 years. But the low prices for homes there (half the price of comparable homes in Asheville NC) make it possible to live there and travel during the hot months.

That's a great advantage to a home in Mississippi, that you can't easily find elsewhere.

[Gill O'Blarney]

Originally Posted by betwixt & between

I cant verify this but I read that US Gov stats reflect 1 of 5 persons in the state of Mississippi are receiving Social Supplemental Income (SSI) on through the 3rd generation. SSI is avaialble thru Title XVI of the Social Security Act as an expansion of benefits and part of LBJ's Great Society since 1964 or 65. SSI is for people who haven't worked, and then say they can't work because of some kind of physical or mental disability. It's commonly known as Federal Welfare and is very easy to get. However, you slice it that's a depressing statistic even if it's only 5% of the population.

Uh, your posting is completely false from beginning to end. Just another unwarranted and unsupportable slam at Mississippi.

[poptones]

My daughter lives in Michigan, not Mississippi, and she can't work because of a brain aneurysm that popped during childbirth. She died and is lucky to be alive, she can't work because she has long term health problems including seizures, but she was DENIED disability and SSI. She's not the only one I know like this. SSI is NOT so easy to get, and it often takes years to even get it started. It's NOT a simple matter of saying "I can't work" and waiting for the check to come it - and when (if) it does it's not like a living wage. Besides getting halfway decent health care, it's only about 600 bucks a month. Anyone here care to try paying rent and keeping the lights on with 600 bucks a month? I own my house and car free and clear and I couldn't even pay taxes and insurance with that - at least not while keeping the utility companies happy.

And Gill, you should look at the numbers again. Even state leadership says your numbers are low.
Here's just one example of the many I was talking about the lead up to that "third."

"In Mississippi, Social Security lowered the child poverty rate by 3.8 percentage points, from 22.3 percent when Social Security income is not counted to 18.5 percent when Social Security is counted. This was the largest percentage-point reduction of any state."

That's from 2002, so it reflects numbers from BEFORE the bottom fell completely out of our economy. As of 2003, the number of people in the state receiving social security was reported as 537,000. That alone is more than 15% of the population and doesn't reflect people who don't qualify for social security but still have need for assistance. And number of children per household is not consistent across economic strata - unfortunately, lower incomes predict higher birth rates. Poorer folks just seem to have more babies - and they tend to have poorer health.

[Scotslass]

Originally Posted by poptones

My daughter lives in Michigan, not Mississippi, and she can't work because of a brain aneurysm that popped during childbirth. She died and is lucky to be alive, she can't work because she has long term health problems including seizures, but she was DENIED disability and SSI. She's not the only one I know like this. SSI is NOT so easy to get, and it often takes years to even get it started. It's NOT a simple matter of saying "I can't work" and waiting for the check to come it - and when (if) it does it's not like a living wage. Besides getting halfway decent health care, it's only about 600 bucks a month. Anyone here care to try paying rent and keeping the lights on with 600 bucks a month? I own my house and car free and clear and I couldn't even pay taxes and insurance with that - at least not while keeping the utility companies happy.

And Gill, you should look at the numbers again. Even state leadership says your numbers are low.
Here's just one example of the many I was talking about the lead up to that "third."

"In Mississippi, Social Security lowered the child poverty rate by 3.8 percentage points, from 22.3 percent when Social Security income is not counted to 18.5 percent when Social Security is counted. This was the largest percentage-point reduction of any state."

That's from 2002, so it reflects numbers from BEFORE the bottom fell completely out of our economy. As of 2003, the number of people in the state receiving social security was reported as 537,000. That alone is more than 15% of the population and doesn't reflect people who don't qualify for social security but still have need for assistance. And number of children per household is not consistent across economic strata - unfortunately, lower incomes predict higher birth rates. Poorer folks just seem to have more babies - and they tend to have poorer health.

I'm really sorry to hear about your daughter. I am also saddened that the government will not support her, it would be a very different story here if she had something as serious as that.

[Gill O'Blarney]

Guess I never thought of "social security" as "federal assistance". SSI is, but not Social Security itself. I'm drawing social security, but I don't consider it Federal Assistance at all. It was "bought and paid for".

Guess we'll just have to agree to disagree. And move on.

One last thing though. The statistic that 30% of children in Mississippi are living below the defined Poverty Level is easily available from the Census Bureau and other sources. Here's one link to it: http://www.chn.org/pdf/2007/depthchildpov.pdf

What "state leaders" (politicians) say doesn't carry any weight with me. I look at the actual statistics, not political rhetoric.

You can have the last word. Time for me to move on.

[Sunnnee]

Move to Oregon. Anything by the west coast works for me.

[monkey cabal]

Oxford is a terrific little city. That would be my choice.

[Derry8107]

In my opinion, here are the following best cities in Mississippi to call home: Horn Lake, Southaven, Olive Branch, and Hernando (all in DeSoto County with close distance to Memphis); college town of Oxford (speaking from Ole Miss Alum); Tupelo (located in fast-growing Lee County); and Madison, Ridgeland, and Brandon (surburbs of Jackson).

Although I heard many good things about Hattiesburg, I can't really say it's a great town since I am not familiar with the city.

I know the Gulf Coast is gorgeous so if you don't mind dealing with hurricanes, go for it because it's a nice area.

If you are completely retired and do not have to work, you should check out antebellum, leafy small town of Natchez in SW MS by the almighty MS River. It's very peaceful with plenty of fishing and river cruise opportunities with low cost of living while living in luxury, old historic homes there if you are into that kind of lifestyle.