Jun 07
5
The inspiration for this post is from what on the surface is a pretty light and off-topic comment to my recent post about my eBay crap:
Stumbled upon your website today and then was looking at your recent posts, clicked on your ebay items and say your name at ebay is lsutigerfan…Go Tigers! Originally from LSU and now in Orlando.. waiting to go home one day! Good luck with your blog here.
Normally this type of comment would be the type to bring a smile to your face but not something worthy of its own posting in reply. However, being originally from Louisiana myself and having just helped my brother-in-law (also from Louisiana) and his wife move into their apartment here in Houston, I thought it would be a good opportunity to post about what I call the economic refugees of Louisiana.
Nowadays when you hear about people from Louisiana that have settled elsewhere many assume that we were displaced by Hurricane Katrina and had to start our lives anew because we had nothing left there to go back to. There were many that were in that situation, and our hearts go out to them, but I am talking about others who left Louisiana not due to the damage caused by a natural disaster but the damage caused by the disaster of the state’s reputation of political corruption and poverty. Louisiana was going down the tubes well before Katrina. And with the destruction of infrastructure and the continued political leadership of such characters of Kathleen Babineaux Blanco (you can’t run a state like you do a tourism campaign), the indicted US Rep. William Jefferson, and Mr. Chocolate City himself Mayor Ray Nagin, we are certainly not on the road to an improvement of that situation.
I left Louisiana in 2001 upon graduating from LSU because I couldn’t find suitable employment in Louisiana. My wife left Louisiana in 2003. My oldest brother-in-law left in 2006, the next oldest moved out just a few weeks ago for the same reasons. Of my friends from college, only one has stayed in Louisiana. All of the others left Louisiana upon getting a degree to pursue opportunities elsewhere. So many LSU graduates have left Louisiana for Houston that there is now a Houston and a North Houston LSU Alumni Chapter, as a single chapter could not meet the needs of all of the alumni here.
The issue has been noted amongst columnists and journalists in Louisiana for years. In 2002, The Baton Rouge Advocate ran a twelve-part series discussing the loss of the best and brightest of Louisiana and the impact it would have in the years to come. Unfortunately their archives online don’t go back that far so I can’t post it here, but it is a great read for anyone interested in the subject. There was also a column by Dr. Chris Warner on PoliticsLA.com in 2003 discussing the topic, which is linked here. One of the overriding themes of the piece is that one of the big factors in the exodus is the lack of jobs, which was explained with the following:
Chief operating officers of firms looking to locate or relocate their business operations normally focus on four distinct areas of location criteria: 1) An equitable tax structure that does not overly tax business; 2) A well-educated work force; 3) A quality of life that is attractive for the firm’s upper-level managers and their families, 4) and a sound infrastructure that enables them to transport their goods and services efficiently.
In Louisiana, it is debatable whether or not we have any of the aforementioned criteria for business location met.
A couple of interesting quotes from the article:
Chief Legislative Fiscal Officer Johnny Rombach: “Right now, the 22 to 30 year olds are the ones leaving Louisiana. However, during the next 5 to 10 years, it’s going to be their retiring parents–the baby boomers—who will be leaving. People stick around in Louisiana for basically two reasons—the jobs they have, and their families. Many of the boomers’ kids have already left the state. Where do you think the parents are going to go once they retire?”
Former Louisiana Governor Buddy Roemer: “An entire generation now—it’s been over 25 years since the rise of Edwin Edwards in Louisiana–and we continue to see the net migration of our brightest professionals; of people voting with their feet. In many ways, Louisiana is a better state to live in, than to work in.”
That Louisiana is a better state to live in than work in is a sentiment shared by many of us originally from Louisiana. The people and culture of the state of Louisiana make it a wonderful place to live, but it is hard to take advantage of that when you are paid 20-30% less for the same work as you would be in Texas, if you can even find work.
“Waiting to go home one day”, as my reader said. Many of us feel the same way, but until there is something for us to go home to, we’ll be waiting it out elsewhere a LONG time.
