Economic Performance

A new report indicates that half of Louisiana's metropolitan areas escaped the recession as of December 2009. The Baton Rouge Business Report quotes a Moody's Economy.com report that shows Baton Rouge, Lafayette, Lake Charles and New Orleans all moved out of the recession at that time. Alexandria, Houma-Thibodaux, Monroe and Shreveport-Bossier all remained in the recession. Louisiana's performance mirrors the nation, where about 52% of the metro areas remained in the recession in December. The full story and a link to the full map are here. 

The Moody's Economy.com site features a map that shows Louisiana as a whole in recovery. Compared to the county-by-county map of the recession that we posted a couple of months back, this shows the economy doing an exact geographic reversal. That is, the recession came to us from the coasts, but it is receding from the center out.

The Small Business and Entrepreneurship Council recently released its ranking for the best states to start a new business. Louisiana ranks 29th--not as bad as it might be, not nearly what we would have it be. A troubling aspect of Louisiana's score is our ranking behind other states in the region.

My former colleagues at Southern Growth Policies Board noted in their Southern Compass newsletter today, the release of a new Kauffman Foundation report on job creation and young businesses.

The Baton Rouge Advocate's editorial of Sunday, September 27, lauds Governor Bobby Jindal for giving the state's two streamlining commissions financial targets for their recommended cost-cutting. However, the same editorial calls the Governor's strategy into question for wanting higher education to emerge with a smaller budget.