Leaders for a Better Louisiana and the Public Affairs Research Council of Louisiana (PAR) have partnered to release the State of the States Report 2026, an independent assessment of Louisiana’s performance across 30 benchmarks.
Produced by the bipartisan State of the Nation Project and housed at Tulane University’s Murphy Institute, the report tracks Louisiana’s national rankings, its trends over time and its comparison to the entire country.
PAR and Leaders for a Better Louisiana are serving as local partners for the Louisiana report to help bring this information to policymakers, civic leaders, community organizations and the public.
At a time of rising polarization, misinformation and distrust, the project seeks to cut through the noise of daily headlines and focus attention on data to help citizens and leaders to better understand Louisiana’s challenges and its progress.
“Good policy starts with good information,” said Dr. Steven Procopio, President of PAR Louisiana. “Louisiana will not solve its biggest challenges by guessing at solutions or chasing anecdotes. We need trustworthy data, clear benchmarks and an honest understanding of where we stand. This report helps provide that foundation so policymakers and the public can set priorities, measure progress and hold ourselves accountable for results.”
“This report gives Louisianans a bipartisan, apples-to-apples look at where our state stands compared to other states,” said Adam Knapp, CEO of Leaders for a Better Louisiana. “While some of the trends are encouraging, we hope the structural challenges revealed in the report will create a sense of urgency for leaders to improve our state’s outcomes.”
Overall, Louisiana is improving over time on nine of the 30 measures included in the report. Louisiana’s performance in the report raises concerns, although there are a handful of areas that show positive movement. Among the report’s notable findings:
- Louisiana continues to grapple with inequality, education, environment, productivity, violence and workforce outcomes, ranking near the bottom nationally in several areas.
- The state shows relative strengths in life satisfaction, civil liberties, economic output and mental health, ranking higher in those areas than in many other major categories.
- Education results are mixed but encouraging, with Louisiana showing positive movement in test scores even though overall educational attainment among residents remains low.
- Workforce indicators remain a serious concern, with Louisiana ranking last in prime-age employment-to-population ratio, labor force participation and hourly earnings growth.
- Volunteerism, youth depression, adult depression and academic test scores for both math and reading are areas where Louisiana is improving faster, or declining more slowly, than the nation overall.
All rankings in the release reflect 2023 and 2024 statistics, the most recent year for which complete, comparable data are available across all measures and all states.
To access the full report, click here: https://stateofnation.org/louisiana/
About the Organizations
The State of the States Report 2026 is produced by the State of the Nation Project, a bipartisan initiative based at Tulane University’s Murphy Institute. The project’s board includes scholars from the Brookings Institution, American Enterprise Institute, Johns Hopkins University, Princeton University, Stanford University’s Hoover Institution and the University of Pennsylvania, among others.
Leaders for a Better Louisiana is dedicated to unlocking Louisiana’s potential. The organization connects and develops leaders to drive transformative change for the state. Formed through the merger of Committee of 100 (C100) and Council for a Better Louisiana (CABL), Better Louisiana’s vision is a Louisiana with a dynamic, future-ready economy that offers every citizen and business the opportunity to thrive. For more information, visit www.betterla.org
PAR Louisiana, founded in 1950, is a nonpartisan, nonprofit research and civic engagement organization dedicated to good governance, transparency and informed policy. PAR is respected as an independent voice offering solutions to crucial issues in Louisiana through accurate, objective research and focusing public attention on those solutions. PAR believes that the soundest way to achieve political progress is through deep-rooted public understanding and support. For more information, visit www.parlouisiana.org
For more information, contact:
Leaders for a Better Louisiana: Cathy Edmonston, 225.281.2723 or cathy@betterla.org
Public Affairs Research Council of Louisiana: Steven Procopio, 225.926.8414 or steven@parlouisiana.org