Updated September 4, 2026. Quick answer: Mississippi’s poor-relief statute reaches a wide relative class, parents, grandparents, siblings and descendants, not just adult children, and sets a flat 150 dollar per month forfeiture for refusing to help, recoverable by the county.
What Mississippi actually sets out
| What the statute sets out | What it says |
|---|---|
| Miss. Code Ann. Sec. 43-31-25 | “The father and grandfather, the mother and grandmother, and brothers and sisters, and the descendants of any pauper not able to work, as the board of supervisors shall direct, shall, at their own charge, relieve and maintain such pauper; and, in case of refusal, shall forfeit and pay the county the sum of One Hundred Fifty Dollars ($150.00) per month, for each month they may so refuse, to be recovered in the name of the county…” |
| Civil only, county-enforced | “…and shall be liable to any governmental entity who supplies such poor relative, if abandoned, with necessaries, not exceeding said sum per month…” |
| Reaches nonresident relatives too | “If any such relative be a nonresident he may be proceeded against by attachment, as in cases of attachment against debtors.” |
| Cap or time limit | 150 dollars per month per relative is the stated ceiling; no separate filing deadline appears in the text. |
| Case law | No reported case or documented enforcement action was found. |
How it works in practice
- The liable class is much wider than just an adult child, it includes grandparents, grandchildren, siblings and their descendants, all directed by the county board of supervisors, not by the poor relative or a private party.
- The 150 dollar figure has not changed since the last substantive amendment in 1987, so it has not been inflation-adjusted in decades.
- A relative living out of state is not shielded, the statute allows attachment proceedings against a nonresident the same as a resident debtor.
What a filial responsibility statute is, why most of them sit unused, and which state is the one with documented recent enforcement is explained on the filial responsibility laws by state page. How this fits alongside the other two mechanisms that can turn a parent’s medical debt into a living person’s debt is explained on who actually owes medical bills after a death, and what a nursing home may and may not ask a family member to sign at admission is on the admission agreement traps page. This page is the record for Mississippi.
What this page does not settle
- Mississippi has no free official state-run statute portal; this section was read from two independent structured mirrors of the current code (not the state’s own domain, which requires a paid Lexis subscription) that reproduce the section’s full amendment history and agree word for word with each other, but that is a lower confidence tier than a direct state-site read, and is disclosed as such.
- This page reads the state’s own current code. A state can amend or repeal this section without the page around it changing, and a detail specific to your situation, such as a pending Medicaid application or a prior period of estrangement, can change which part of the statute applies.
- A statute existing is not the same question as whether it has ever been used. Enforcement history, where it exists at all, is noted on this page; where none was found, that is stated plainly rather than left blank.
- Every quotation here was read against the source on September 4, 2026. Nothing on this page is legal advice, and the statute’s own defenses and procedural requirements matter as much as its liability language.
Whether this statute actually reaches a given family’s situation is decided by a court on the specific facts, not by this page. Nothing here is legal advice, and no one should sign anything or send money on the strength of a web page.
Sources
The sources above were retrieved and read against the state text on September 4, 2026. Every quotation on this page was checked against those bytes.