In addition, Hickory is a college town. There are a lot of students in Hickory attending college, and as a result Hickory provides a number of services, amenities and opportunities geared to the needs and activities of students.

In Hickory, however, the average commute to work is quite long. On average, people spend 32.31 minutes each day getting to work, which is significantly higher than the national average. One bright side is that local public transit is widely used, so it may be an option to avoid the headache of driving in the heavy traffic by leaving the car at home and taking transit.

For a small town, Hickory has a lot of people who use public transit to get to work, and those that do mostly ride the bus. This suggests that a real need for low-cost transportation in Hickory exists, and local transit is helping to meet that need.

The citizens of Hickory have a very low rate of college education: just 7.81% of people over 25 have a bachelor's degree or advanced degree, compared to a national average of 21.84% for all cities.

The per capita income in Hickory in 2018 was $18,285, which is lower middle income relative to Mississippi, and low income relative to the rest of the US. This equates to an annual income of $73,140 for a family of four. However, Hickory contains both very wealthy and poor people as well. Hickory also has one of the higher rates of people living in poverty in the nation, with 47.73% of its population below the federal poverty line.

Hickory is a very ethnically-diverse town. The people who call Hickory home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of Hickory residents report their race to be Black or African-American, followed by White. Important ancestries of people in Hickory include English, Irish, European, French, and German.

The most common language spoken in Hickory is English. Other important languages spoken here include Polish and Italian.