The other ledger for Mississippi: 28 rural hospitals — 49% of them, the nation's second-highest share — modeled vulnerable to closure, a capital city's water system under federal management, 132 high-hazard dams in poor or unsatisfactory condition, and 56% of major roads poor or mediocre in the state least able to pay for any of it. And one genuine bright ratio: 62 affordable homes per 100 poorest renter households, the nation's best, printed exactly as measured. Every figure is sourced, dated, and labeled — counted, modeled, or assessed.
How to read this page: the class chip on every measure is the honesty label. Counted = an inspection or enumeration record. Modeled = a study's projection or risk score — printed with the modeler's name. Assessed = a structured survey of required investment — needs as documented, not measurements of decay. Figures keep the form their source gave them; years are printed on every measure.
Click any category to expand it — every measure with its figure, what it means in plain language, and its source.
Hospitals. Chartis's 2026 update lowers Mississippi's vulnerable count to 24 hospitals (reported by Fierce Healthcare); the 2025 edition's 28 (49%) is printed because it was verified directly against Chartis's own publication — the same treatment Georgia's page gives its Chartis figures. Sheps closures use the standard since-2005 window (3 closures + 3 conversions).
Food. No verified statewide USDA low-income/low-access (LILA) resident count exists for Mississippi, so — as on South Carolina's page — no food-desert count is printed. The two measures shown are the standard need instruments (USDA household food security; Feeding America Map the Meal Gap), both reaching this page through news reporting of the official releases and flagged 'news-flagged' in the data.
Traffic. There is no current INRIX metro figure published for Jackson, and none is invented: the traffic measures are TRIP's last urban-area breakout for Mississippi (2019 release), printed with their year. Mississippi's congestion is real but localised; the category's severity (55) is the lowest on this page by design.
Dams — two counts, labelled. AP's 132 (2019) counts poor AND unsatisfactory high-hazard dams; MDEQ's 52 (2025) counts unsatisfactory only, among a slightly larger high-hazard inventory (351 vs ASCE's 347 in January 2025). The counts are shown side by side with their definitions and are never summed.
Power. The load-growth figure is Entergy Mississippi territory only — the state's largest utility, not the whole state — and the 2,262 MW response is a private utility build for a private customer. Both are printed because the need is real and state-scale; neither is a public project, and neither appears on the Built page.
Water. The $8.1B drinking-water and $1.3B wastewater figures are ASCE's January 2025 fact-sheet compilations of EPA needs surveys; the Water Program Portal's February 2026 Mississippi sheet, putting total water need at roughly $10B, corroborates their sum. Roads figures are TRIP's April 2026 edition, which supersedes the $1,071/driver figure in ASCE's older fact sheet — the newer number is used and the supersession is noted on the measure.