It should come as no surprise that Mississippi retained its ranking as the poorest state in the nation last year, according to statistics just released by the U.S. Census Bureau.

With the lowest median household income and the highest poverty rate in the country, Mississippi continues to find itself in desperate need of solutions to repair the crippled systems which have plagued the state for far too long.

Gov. Phil Bryant has had to answer plenty of questions during his time in office regarding why Mississippi remains at the bottom of every good list and the top of every bad, along with what he’s doing to fix it.

Yet, Bryant’s statement regarding the most recent stats did little to address the problems at hand, instead accusing Mississippi media outlets and even the Obama Administration of focusing on negative statistics “in an obvious attempt to discredit any gains Mississippi has made.”

“It is interesting how these statistics only seem important to the media now that Republicans have some political power,” Bryant said.

Mississippi has made gains in several areas from unemployment to education to health and beyond. No one is ignoring that.

But those gains, encouraging as they are, do nothing to address why 22 percent of Mississippi’s residents are living in poverty or how our state’s leaders intend to fix it.

As the governor of Mississippi, Bryant’s job is to serve the entire state.

His latest remarks suggest he’s only interested in 78 percent of it.