By Christopher Young,
Contributing Writer,
Were it not for the tenacious investigative reporting by Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Anna Wolfe, no one would be wiser about what is now known the world over as Mississippi’s Welfare Scandal.
Tens of millions of federal Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) funds explicitly intended to support the poorest families in the poorest state in the nation, were diverted from that purpose while the funds were under the administration of former Governor Bryant and his Department of Human Services director, appointee John Davis.
On December 20, 2024, The Administration for Children and Families (ACF), an operating division of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, issued a demand letter to Mississippi’s Department of Human Services for repayment of just shy of $101 million, per numerous sources.
In February 2025, the current director of MDHS, Bob Anderson, wrote back that he needed more time, saying, per Mississippi Today, “… it is the position of the agency that the amount of penalty proposed by OFA is based on insufficient information and is disputed by the agency.”
I wonder how much time he needs? Hopefully it won’t take as long as Mississippi’s ratification of the 13th Amendment (abolishing slavery) – 130 years – then delayed another 18 years due to what then Secretary of State Delbert Hosemann called a clerical error: failing to send the documentation to the U.S. Archivist.
ACF has agreed to hit the pause button on their demand letter. Time will tell if accountability will ever be achieved – accountability is not a strong suit of Mississippi’s leaders. Obviously, caring for the poor and vulnerable isn’t either, despite it being a central theme of The Gospels.
Per localmemphis.com, the current Mississippi Governor, Jonathan ‘Tate’ Reeves, prematurely curtailed participation in a federal rental assistance program in 2022 – returning $130 million to Washington and calling the program that provided rent and utility assistance to 36,000 households a “socialist experiment program and liberal handouts.”
Then for three years straight, he has opted out of the federal summer grocery benefits program that could have helped hundreds of thousands of Mississippi families. Helping those less fortunate is not in Mississippi’s DNA.
Yet it is Mississippi’s annual contracting program that is arguably far worse. Each year billions of taxpayer dollars are doled out to keep the state agencies afloat. Including boards and commissions, there are 130 agencies in the small state of Mississippi, and they all need goods and services to function.
In fiscal year 2025, $5.519 billion was spent on them through contracts. Basic arithmetic applied to the numbers contained in the state’s annual Minority Participation Report show that over 99% of the expenditures went to white people, less than 1% to non-white people. By the numbers, stark discrimination and racism.
The Census Bureau reports that Mississippi’s total minority population is 45.3%. Imagine if minority contractors received 45.3% of the annual state contracting dollars, instead of less than 1%. That would translate to over $2.5 billion dollars. Imagine what that money could do for minority families and children, let alone the psychological impact of having a seat at the table, year after year?
Imagine what that could do for African American women in Mississippi who make just 58 cents for every dollar made by a white man in Mississippi? Or to home ownership rates? Or to the wealth gap where white Mississippians hold seventeen times more wealth than African American households?
Or to the mortgage denial rate? Or to the rate of banked African Americans, Hispanic Americans, Asian Americans, and Native Americans who too often resort to using costly check cashing services and predatory payday lenders? Just imagine.
Despite what you hear from the Oval Office these days, racism can only be exercised by those of the majority race against those in the minority. Mississippi may well be the epicenter of systemic and institutional racism in America, yet not alone. Come to find out, scandals like this are multi-faceted.
Merriam-Webster says that scandals have six elements – a transgression, public awareness, prominence, hypocrisy, outrage, and cover-up. It’s easy to see why the TANF public corruption scheme has been referred to as a scandal, some even saying it’s the largest scandal in Mississippi history. Our highly ambitious State Auditor even wrote a book about it – “Mississippi Swindle.”
When it comes to state contracting though, an element is missing – outrage. Could it be that outrage is missing because public awareness is limited? There are no mainstream media platforms in Mississippi making the public aware of this issue, even when it is brought to the attention of those in charge.
And while some members of the Mississippi Legislative Black Caucus are aware of the issue, scant few have attempted to address it by drafting legislation, an issue that financially cripples their constituents on an annual basis.
Awarding over 99% of annual state contracting dollars to white people must be perfectly moral, legal, and ethical to the Mississippi State government. There is no outrage because it is by design. So stripping away opportunity, limiting participation, and hurting people that don’t look like you must be moral, legal, and ethical – and unworthy of coverage by Mississippi’s mainstream media?
Afterall, this is Mississippi.
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