Better Louisiana Indicators Measuring State’s Wellbeing Trending Up

The findings come from Better Louisiana’s Louisiana Fact Book: Facts for the Future, an online resource that monitors the state’s progress in five key areas:

In the Fact Book’s third year, it shows that 20 indicators are trending upward compared to 16 in August 2024. Thirteen are trending downward compared to 16 the prior year. Two remain unchanged.

Since data for various indicators is updated at different times of the year, some of the indicators have no updates. For those we recorded the same trend results as were seen in the prior year. Still, when viewed collectively, the indicators paint a picture of Louisiana that can help us assess the challenges we are currently facing and help us understand the priorities we must focus on to create a better state.

“The good news is that the number of indicators trending upward is the highest we have seen in the three years since we have been tracking this data,” said Adam Knapp, CEO of Better Louisiana. “While that’s encouraging, we should be moving up or at least holding our ground on all of these indicators. This is particularly true since Louisiana already ranks low compared to other states on many of these items, including several where we continue to see declines.”

The education and workforce indicators tend to be among the brighter spots in the findings. Out of 10 measures, six showed some progress, three fell back, and one held steady. The most encouraging news is that there was growth in both 8 th grade math and overall student performance in grades 3-8. High school graduates ticked up slightly, and the percentage of students graduating with college credit or a credential continues to rise, as does the overall education attainment of the state’s working-age population. Of concern is the fact that the percentage of children ready for kindergarten is still declining, emphasizing the need to increase our commitment to early childhood education.

There was generally encouraging news in the economic data, too. For the first time since the 2020 census, Louisiana saw a slight uptick in its population, reversing three years of declining numbers. But the growth was small, less than 10,000 people, and the state still has about 50,000 fewer residents than it did in 2020. Part of the reason is that outmigration continues to be a problem. In 2024 about 17,000 more people moved out of Louisiana than moved in. Though that number remains in negative territory, the current rate of exit is significantly less than the nearly 30,000 who left the state the previous year.

Job growth was another bright spot, though it, too, comes with caveats. Over the course of the last year, three significant milestones occurred: 1) the number of people employed in Louisiana returned to pre-COVID levels, 2) the number of jobs in the state topped 2 million for the first time since early 2015, and 3) over the last year Louisiana’s job growth rate of 1.2% exceeded the national rate. While all of these are encouraging achievements, Louisiana’s improvements remain far behind the increases we have seen in other Southern states.

There are also some areas of ongoing concern. Both the overall poverty rate and child poverty increased significantly. Health indicators remain troubling, particularly in terms of declining life expectancy, low birthweight babies, infant mortality, and food insecurity. And Louisiana continues to see growing issues with many of its small, rural water systems where more of them are running into safety and compliance issues.

“As we work as a state to improve economic development and create more jobs, we can’t ignore the things that are holding us back,” said Barry Erwin, Chief Policy Officer of Better Louisiana. “The message that we are improving on most indicators is a good one. Our goal now must be to sustain our progress and broaden it so that we can begin to impact some of our most chronic challenges.”

Each indicator Better Louisiana tracks comes with an individual data point, an explanation of why it is important, and an arrow showing if the state has improved or declined over the previous year. Each data point is supplemented with a corresponding note that provides additional background and recent trends. Taken as a whole, they are intended to help citizens and policy makers understand how we compare with other states and see if we are making progress.

Better Louisiana continues to place data at the forefront of its public policy work. That is because data is one of the most effective tools for identifying the areas where Louisiana struggles and driving policy changes that lead to positive solutions. These indicators do not represent every issue of importance to Louisiana. But Better Louisiana believes the breadth of issues included in the Louisiana Fact Book can help provide clarity on the things that are holding us back, recognize progress where we see it, and highlight the challenges we must overcome to make Louisiana the dynamic and prosperous state every citizen deserves.