Mississippi has the largest percentage of children in poverty at 27.6 percent. This is 37 percent higher than the 50-state average. The Magnolia State has had the highest rate of children in poverty for five of the last ten years. Louisiana moved to third place behind both Mississippi and New Mexico in 2018. In the past ten years, Louisiana’s, New Mexico’s, and Mississippi’s children living in poverty rates have been above 21 percent. 

In 2018, Mississippi had an overall poverty rate of 19.1 percent, again the highest in the country. Mississippi’s child poverty rate is higher than the state’s overall poverty rate by 30.8 percent.  Some contributing factors could be that Mississippi has both second-lowest employment rate at 53 percent and the second-lowest number of people with a bachelor’s degree. West Virginia beats Mississippi in both of those categories.