According to the United States Census Bureau, the town has a total area of 0.39 square miles (1.0 km2), all land.

[12] In a 2000 study published by Mississippi State University, Jonestown was described as a community "plagued by difficult problems."

Agriculture no longer supported the town as it once had, and many Jonestown residents were employed outside the community.

Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Charles Simic wrote in 2006:There are towns like Jonestown, Mississippi, that in their shocking poverty make one gasp.

Weathered, sagging and unpainted houses, boarded-up windows, others covered with plastic, yards full of dismantled rusty cars, their parts scattered about amid all kinds of other junk and trash, are everywhere.

Idle people of all ages lounge on collapsing porches or stand on street corners waiting for something to do.

In the countryside with its fertile dark soil, soybeans have become the chief crop, poultry farms are a major business, and there are nine gambling casinos in the next county.

[16] Catholic Cardinal Avery Dulles described the work of the ministry in Jonestown as "bringing hope to people on the verge of desperation.

"[17] In 2012, one of the program's nuns survived being beaten and stabbed during a robbery at her Jonestown home.