The group Leaders for a Better Louisiana says Louisiana’s overall well-being has improved over the last year. Chief Policy Officer Barry Erwin says the findings come from the organization’s Louisiana Fact Book.
“Out of 35 indicators, we found that we’re actually moving forward on about 20 of them. We’re going down on 13, and we’re staying the same on a couple,” Erwin said.
These indicators demonstrate an upward trend compared to results released in August of 2024. Although the state is making progress on close to 60% of the indicators, it is losing ground on about a third of them.
Erwin says of the 20 indicators where Louisiana is making progress, education really stuck out, especially when it comes to reading and math in the early grade levels. And Erwin says Louisiana is making good progress on the economic front as well.
“We had a little bit of population growth. We had some of the out migration decrease a little bit, although we still have some. But we also saw some good jobs growth,” Erwin noted.
On the downside, Erwin says the state continues to experience issues with health outcomes, including poverty, food insecurity, life expectancy and low birthweight babies. Erwin says the biggest solution to the state’s problems is a strong education system.
“The data is out there that shows as our population becomes more educated, as we get more skills and higher levels of education, those other health outcomes, those poverty outcomes, those even low birthweight baby outcomes, they improve,” Erwin said.
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