Forest is a somewhat small city located in the state of Mississippi. With a population of 5,330 people and three associated neighborhoods, Forest is the 65th largest community in Mississippi.Because occupations involving physical labor dominate the local economy, Forest is generally considered to be a blue-collar town. 40.31% of the Forest workforce is employed in blue-collar occupations, compared to the national average of 27.7%. Overall, Forest is a city of sales and office workers, service providers, and construction workers and builders. There are especially a lot of people living in Forest who work in office and administrative support (10.47%), management occupations (9.51%), and food service (8.51%). 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.In Forest, just 12.85% of people have at least a bachelor's degree, which is quite a bit lower than the national average for cities and towns of 21.84%. 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. Forest also has a high percentage of its population that was born in another country: 19.57%. The most common language spoken in Forest is English. Other important languages spoken here include Spanish and African languages.
