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So you're looking to rub shoulders with the richest of the rich over some first-class po'boys in the Hospitality State. Just where should you move to be among the wealthy elite of Mississippi?
The first place to look would be some of the surrounding suburbs of Jackson, which constitute 70% of this list's cities. Places like Madison and Brandon top not only this list, but also the best places to live in Mississippi, so they're a safe bet for satisfying the desires of even the most discerning settlers. Another option is living in the northwestern region of the state, in a Memphis suburb like Hernando or Olive Branch.
Just how much do you need to earn to break into Mississippi's high society? Well the good news is that average median household income for the cities on this list is only around $65,000/year, so it's definitely an achievable goal. Heck, in a city like Richland, you can be a top mover and shaker for under $50,000/year. With all that money, you'll be rolling in the finest shrimp and blue crab that Mississippi has to offer. You might even give Mississippi's native daughter Oprah a run for her money.
Get out your fried okra and catfish, switch on the Ole Miss game and read on to learn which spots in Mississippi have the best employment numbers coupled with the highest earners. That way you can skip all the bootlicking and move straight to the upper-echelon of Mississippian society.
At the end of the day, here's the set of the 10 richest places in Mississippi for 2020:
- Madison (Photos | Homes For Sale)
- Brandon (Photos | Homes For Sale)
- Hernando (Photos | Homes For Sale)
- Byram (>Homes For Sale)
- Olive Branch (Photos | Homes For Sale)
- Clinton (Photos | Homes For Sale)
- Southaven (Photos | Homes For Sale)
- Ridgeland (Photos | Homes For Sale)
- Flowood (Photos | Homes For Sale)
- Diamondhead (Photos | Homes For Sale)
There you have it: the best places to be the Mr. and Mrs. Monopoly's of Mississippi. Just because the state has some of the highest poverty levels nationwide, doesn't mean there aren't some serious hotspots of wealth.
How did we come up with this list? For starters, we narrowed the cities down to just those with a population of at least 5,000. We then graded the remaining cities on three factors: poverty rate, unemployment rate, and median household income. Excelling in each of these categories was a one-way ticket to the top of this list. But which of these cities is the richest of the rich? According to the data, Madison is the richest city in Mississippi for 2020.
If you're curious to see how other cities in Mississippi fared, check out the list below.
Rich people not your cup of tea? Feel free to check out some more reading about Mississippi:
The 10 Richest Cities In Mississippi For 2020
/10
Population: 25,522
Rank Last Year: 1 (No Change)
Median Income: $106,849
Unemployment Rate: 1.8%
Poverty Rate: 3.3%
More on Madison: Real Estate | Data | Photos
Madison is a city in Madison County, Mississippi, United States. The population was 24,841 at the 2010 census. The population is currently over 25,000. It is part of the Jackson Metropolitan Statistical Area.
/10
Population: 23,688
Rank Last Year: 2 (No Change)
Median Income: $74,172
Unemployment Rate: 2.6%
Poverty Rate: 3.8%
More on Brandon: Real Estate | Data | Photos
Brandon is a city in Rankin County, Mississippi. The population was 21,705 at the 2010 census. It is the county seat of Rankin County. Brandon is part of the Jackson Metropolitan Statistical Area and located east of the state capital.
/10
Population: 15,807
Rank Last Year: 3 (No Change)
Median Income: $77,754
Unemployment Rate: 3.6%
Poverty Rate: 6.7%
More on Hernando: Real Estate | Data | Photos
Hernando is a city in and the county seat of DeSoto County, which is on the northwest border of Mississippi, United States. The population was 14,090 at the 2010 census, up from 6,812 in 2000. DeSoto County is the second-most-populous county in the Memphis metropolitan area.
/10
Population: 11,657
Rank Last Year: 4 (No Change)
Median Income: $65,671
Unemployment Rate: 2.6%
Poverty Rate: 4.7%
More on Byram: Real Estate | Data
Byram is a city in Hinds County, Mississippi, United States. The population was 11,489 as of the 2010 census, up from 7,386 at the 2000 census, at which time it was an unincorporated census-designated place. It is part of the Jackson Metropolitan Statistical Area. It was incorporated for a second time in its history on June 16, 2009.
/10
Population: 36,721
Rank Last Year: 5 (No Change)
Median Income: $72,451
Unemployment Rate: 4.8%
Poverty Rate: 6.8%
More on Olive Branch: Real Estate | Data | Photos
Olive Branch is a city in DeSoto County, Mississippi, United States. The population was 33,484 at the 2010 census, up from 21,054 in 2000. Olive Branch is a suburb of Memphis, Tennessee, and is part of the Memphis Metropolitan Statistical Area, a region that consists of three counties in southwest Tennessee, five counties in northwest Mississippi, and two counties in eastern Arkansas. From 1990 to 2010 Olive Branch was the fastest growing city in the United States, with a growth rate of 838%. Along with other rapidly growing suburbs in DeSoto County, Olive Branch attributes most of its growth and development to the exodus of large numbers of middle-class families from central Memphis.
/10
Population: 25,456
Rank Last Year: 6 (No Change)
Median Income: $62,492
Unemployment Rate: 2.8%
Poverty Rate: 11.3%
More on Clinton: Real Estate | Data | Photos
Clinton is a city in Hinds County, Mississippi, United States. Situated in the Jackson metropolitan area, it is the tenth largest city in Mississippi. The population was 25,216 at the 2010 United States Census.
/10
Population: 53,274
Rank Last Year: 8 (Up 1)
Median Income: $61,181
Unemployment Rate: 4.7%
Poverty Rate: 9.6%
More on Southaven: Real Estate | Data | Photos
Southaven is a city in DeSoto County, Mississippi, United States. It is a suburb of Memphis, Tennessee, and a principal city in the Memphis metropolitan area. The 2010 census reported a population of 48,982, making Southaven the third-largest city in Mississippi. Southaven is traversed from north to south by the I-55/I-69 freeway. The city's name derives from the fact that Southaven is located south of Whitehaven, a neighborhood in Memphis.
/10
Population: 24,265
Rank Last Year: 9 (Up 1)
Median Income: $57,387
Unemployment Rate: 5.0%
Poverty Rate: 8.9%
More on Ridgeland: Real Estate | Data | Photos
Ridgeland is a city in Madison County, Mississippi. The population was 24,047 at the 2010 census. It is part of the Jackson Metropolitan Statistical Area.
/10
Population: 8,870
Rank Last Year: 7 (Down 2)
Median Income: $62,476
Unemployment Rate: 4.3%
Poverty Rate: 14.1%
More on Flowood: Real Estate | Data | Photos
Flowood is a city in Rankin County, Mississippi. The population was 7,823 at the 2010 census. It is part of the Jackson Metropolitan Statistical Area.
/10
Population: 8,149
Rank Last Year: 12 (Up 2)
Median Income: $71,411
Unemployment Rate: 6.5%
Poverty Rate: 7.5%
More on Diamondhead: Real Estate | Data | Photos
Diamondhead is a city in southeastern Hancock County, Mississippi, United States. The city is located just over 50 miles northeast of New Orleans, Louisiana. It is part of the GulfportBiloxi Metropolitan Statistical Area. In February 2012, Diamondhead was officially incorporated as a city. At the time of the 2010 census, when Diamondhead was an unincorporated census-designated place, the population was 8,425. The city population, with slightly different boundaries, was estimated at 8,217 in 2016.
How We Determined The Richest Places In Mississippi For 2020
The first thing that comes to most people's minds when they think about determining the richest places is to simply identify personal incomes. After all, rich people have really high salaries.
However, we don't believe that one statistic wholly encompasses what it means to be one of the "richest places". So we looked at this set of criteria from the newly released 2014-2018 American Community Survey:
- Poverty Level
- Median Household Income
- Unemployment Rate
Median household income is the most digestible way to understand how rich a place really is. The unemployment rate tries to capture the prospects for more people to become rich. If more people are employed, the richer the future looks.
After we collected the data for all 62 places with more than 5,000 people in Mississippi, we ranked each place from 1 to 62 for each of the criteria, with 1 being the richest.
We then averaged all the rankings for a place into a "Rich Score" with the place having the lowest overall Rich Score, Madison, crowned the "Richest City In Mississippi For 2020". You can download the data here.
You can learn more about the top ten below or skip to the end to see the rankings for all 62 places.
There You Have It - The Wealthiest Places In Mississippi For 2020
Like we said earlier, when we set out to identify the richest places in Mississippi, we weren't sure what we'd encounter, but it ended up being some of the best places to live in Mississippi.
When you look at the data, the cities and places mentioned above meet the criteria for being at the very top of the income ladder for everyone that lives there.
If you're curious enough, here are the poorest cities in Mississippi, according to data:
Poorest: Yazoo City
2nd Poorest: Kosciusko
3rd Poorest: Clarksdale
For more Mississippi reading, check out:
Detailed List Of The Richest Cities In Mississippi
| Rank | City | RichScore |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Madison | 1.33 |
| 2 | Brandon | 2.67 |
| 3 | Hernando | 4.0 |
| 4 | Byram | 4.33 |
| 5 | Olive Branch | 6.67 |
| 6 | Clinton | 7.67 |
| 7 | Southaven | 9.0 |
| 8 | Ridgeland | 10.0 |
| 9 | Flowood | 10.33 |
| 10 | Diamondhead | 10.33 |
| 11 | Petal | 11.33 |
| 12 | Richland | 11.33 |
| 13 | Batesville | 12.33 |
| 14 | Ocean Springs | 15.0 |
| 15 | Long Beach | 17.33 |
| 16 | Pearl | 17.67 |
| 17 | Pontotoc | 17.67 |
| 18 | Tupelo | 18.0 |
| 19 | New Albany | 18.33 |
| 20 | D'iberville | 21.67 |
| 21 | Gautier | 23.67 |
| 22 | Senatobia | 23.67 |
| 23 | Horn Lake | 25.0 |
| 24 | Canton | 28.33 |
| 25 | Aberdeen | 29.33 |
| 26 | Waveland | 29.67 |
| 27 | Biloxi | 29.67 |
| 28 | Amory | 31.67 |
| 29 | Bay St. Louis | 32.33 |
| 30 | Ripley | 33.33 |
| 31 | Cleveland | 33.67 |
| 32 | Booneville | 35.0 |
| 33 | Pascagoula | 35.33 |
| 34 | Moss Point | 35.33 |
| 35 | Pass Christian | 35.67 |
| 36 | Oxford | 37.0 |
| 37 | Gulfport | 37.67 |
| 38 | Corinth | 39.0 |
| 39 | Jackson | 39.33 |
| 40 | Brookhaven | 39.33 |
| 41 | Vicksburg | 41.0 |
| 42 | Meridian | 42.67 |
| 43 | Grenada | 43.0 |
| 44 | Starkville | 43.33 |
| 45 | Mccomb | 44.0 |
| 46 | Philadelphia | 44.33 |
| 47 | Laurel | 44.33 |
| 48 | Forest | 45.0 |
| 49 | West Point | 45.67 |
| 50 | Columbus | 46.67 |
| 51 | Picayune | 47.0 |
| 52 | Columbia | 48.67 |
| 53 | Holly Springs | 49.0 |
| 54 | Hattiesburg | 49.67 |
| 55 | Greenwood | 50.67 |
| 56 | Louisville | 51.0 |
| 57 | Indianola | 52.33 |
| 58 | Natchez | 54.33 |
| 59 | Greenville | 55.33 |
| 60 | Clarksdale | 55.67 |
| 61 | Kosciusko | 56.67 |
| 62 | Yazoo City | 61.67 |
