For a small city, Forest has a lot of people who use public transit to get to work, and those that do mostly ride the bus. This suggests that a real need for low-cost transportation in Forest exists, and local transit is helping to meet that need.
The percentage of people in Forest with college degrees is quite a bit lower than the national average for cities and towns of 21.84%: just 12.85% of people over 25 have a bachelor's degree or advanced degree.
The per capita income in Forest in 2022 was $21,007, which is lower middle income relative to Mississippi, and low income relative to the rest of the US. This equates to an annual income of $84,028 for a family of four. However, Forest contains both very wealthy and poor people as well.
Forest is an extremely ethnically-diverse city. The people who call Forest home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of Forest residents report their race to be Black or African-American, followed by White. Forest also has a sizeable Hispanic population (people of Hispanic origin can be of any race). People of Hispanic or Latino origin account for 29.97% of the city’s residents. Important ancestries of people in Forest include English, Irish, German, Scottish, and Pennsylvania German.
Foreign born people are also an important part of Forest's cultural character, accounting for 19.57% of the city’s population.
The most common language spoken in Forest is English. Other important languages spoken here include Spanish and African languages.
