In an effort to present a descriptive verbal picture of white nonmetropolitan poverty in the Mid-South and to identify those factors contributing to white rural poverty, 1970 census figures were analyzed in conjunction with survey results derived from responses to an 83-item questionnaire made by a random sample of 106 poverty families living in three counties. General characteristics of the white population of the Mid-South were identified as well as poverty-specific characteristics of the Mid-South population. Differential poverty in the Mid-South was analyzed in terms of white and black and metropolitan and rural populations. White poverty in three randomly selected non-metropolitan counties was analyzed in terms of county poverty variations and population attitudes. Correlates of poverty in the Mid-South were assessed in terms of intercounty variations in the poverty rate. Results indicated that in the rural Mid-South: the percent of the white population on an income below the generally accepted poverty cutoff exceeded that of other white populations; poverty of the aged was significant; health problems were significant among the unemployed in the surveyed population; low levels of educational quality/quantity attainment were associated with poverty; underemployment of males and females was comparatively severe, associated with the "discouraged worker" phenomenon, and the industrial structure; a relationship existed between the absolute and/or relative size of the black population and white poverty and between relative isolation, absolute county size, and white poverty. (JC)