More people have moved out of Mississippi than in, every single year from 2011 through 2021. The tide finally turned in 2022 — but the gains so far replace less than a year of a typical 2010s loss.

Each departing class of graduates takes earning power, tax revenue, and the public’s roughly $170,000 per-graduate investment in their K-12 and university education with it. Retaining graduates at the rate of peer states would add an estimated $8 billion in economic growth over a decade.

When movers file their next tax return from a new state, their income goes with them. Mississippi’s net loss of adjusted gross income totals over a billion dollars — though the flow briefly reversed in 2020–22.