Over the last few weeks, a trend has emerged showing less Louisianans filing for unemployment than previous weeks. This week saw this pattern continue, with just under 10,000 people filing for unemployment, a decrease of almost 3,500 from the previous week. This was, once again, a new low since the COVID-19 pandemic began. The number...

On Monday, Governor John Bel Edwards extended the statewide stay-at-home order to May 15. Meanwhile, the number of initial unemployment claims in Louisiana topped 440,000, and an estimate of our state’s real time unemployment rate sat at 27.5 percent. While the COVID-19 crisis is certainly raising valid concerns about public health, the economic damage inflicted by the...

by Daniel Erspamer, CEO of the Pelican Institute Throughout our shared history, Americans – and Louisianans, in particular – have faced down many crises, from war to drought to floods to illness. Through determination, innovation and ingenuity, a strong sense of community and patriotism, and a stubborn will to succeed, we’ve prevailed. These principles are...

As economic news continues to focus on the fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic, the Bureau of Economic Analysis’ (BEA) recently released report further underscored Louisiana’s pre-coronavirus economic struggles. In the final quarter of 2019, the BEA report on state Gross Domestic Products (GDP) showed the Louisiana economy grew an anemic 1.1 percent, ranking 43rd in...

With a record 6.6 million Americans applying for unemployment over the last month, doubling the previous record from two weeks ago, economists were dreading the latest national report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The national report is now out and found that total nonfarm employment decreased by an astounding 701,000 nonfarm workers, the largest...

While the conversations around the health and economic impacts of COVID-19 were dominating news cycles, last week’s state jobs report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) flew under the radar. The report showed that the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate in Louisiana for February 2020 remained a sky-high 5.2 percent, more than half a point...

In Restoring the Right to Earn a Living: A Common-Sense Solution to Occupational Licensing Job Barriers, Goldwater Institute Director of National Litigation Jon Riches examines the burdens inflicted by onerous job licensing requirements in Louisiana. And for many Louisiana job-seekers, it’s a pretty grim situation. “For too many professions, occupational licensing requirements do not exist...