Louisiana: Great example how bad gov retards economic growth, loses people.
- snitzoid
- 7 days ago
- 2 min read
Like, Illinois and NY states that don't support business lose employers and residents. Florida and Texas have received a great percentage of the folks leaving those states and others for the same reason. Sadly, as people fly the target state usually experiences home price inflation. Eckkk.
Decided to take a deeper dive (Claude) into Louisiana's metrics to see if this was an isolated case or if the government is completely out to lunch. Shocker...the gov is out to lunch!
Here's the picture:
Population. Louisiana is the laggard of the South. From 2020 to 2025 the state lost roughly 55,000 more residents than it gained — the only Southern state with negative net migration over that span, while Texas and Florida added 2.0M and 1.8M respectively. Cumulative population change ran about −1.2% against +2.6% for the US. The story has turned slightly the last two years (small positive gains in 2024 and 2025 driven mostly by immigration plus a modest natural increase), but at 0.07% in 2025 the growth rate is still well below the national 0.5%.
GDP. Real GSP was $259.9B in 2025, up 1.1% on the year — softer than national growth (~2.8%). The Q2 2025 print was hotter (around 4.0% annualized, roughly at the national pace), but the trailing record is weaker: real GDP actually contracted ~5% in 2023, and the state ranks 39th in real GDP per capita. Energy dominates — natural gas, refining, and petrochemicals are about a quarter of the economy, which gives Louisiana industrial electricity rates ~16% below the national average but also ties growth tightly to commodity cycles. CNBC's 2025 "Top States for Business" put Louisiana 46th of 50.
Income, poverty, education. This is where the gap is widest. Median household income is roughly $51K vs about $77K nationally — 4th-lowest in the country. The 18.9% poverty rate is the highest in the US (the national figure is around 12.2%), and child poverty runs 25.2%. Bachelor's-degree attainment is 27.2% vs ~35% nationally. Unemployment in May 2025 was 4.5%, modestly above the national 4.2%.
The throughline. Since the 1980s oil collapse, Louisiana has had robust natural population increase (births exceeding deaths) but persistent out-migration — people are born there and then leave. Recent hurricanes, the insurance affordability crisis, and slow economic diversification away from energy have kept that pattern intact. The state has real structural advantages (cheap industrial power, port infrastructure, recent LNG and petrochemical buildout, defense spending up 77%) but the gap to the national average on growth, income, and poverty is still wide and only slowly closing.
Want me to drill into any one of these — e.g., parish-level migration patterns, the energy sector's share of GSP over time, or how Louisiana stacks up specifically against its Gulf Coast peers?
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