Poverty in Acadiana

[CajunFun]

UL prof is consultant on report, but the the Sarah Berthelot in the article was SGA prez, and her husband, now at ESA, was with the Dean of Student's office for years.

http://theadvocate.com/news/14687928...g-report-finds

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Free Cajuns tickets to the first 50 customers.

[cajun_lannister]

40% of La cant afford to live ... SOOOO lets increase taxes

[ulXrunner]

40% of La cant afford to live ... SOOOO lets increase taxes

Yep! The only way out the hole is to dig deeper. It's common core sense.

[scotto_25]

Or how about just start livin off the guvment? Seems to work for a lot of people. No need to job search. Get your grocery card and buy them steaks while I stand behind you with my chicken breast that I'm putting on credit.

[MountainDew]

Can we please not let a sports board turn into politics? I hear enough of it in everyday life. Don't need it here as well.

[CrazyCajun]

You could just not click on it

[CajunJack55]

You could just not click on it

Agree. It's an insightful article and local and you know what you're getting with the title. Just hope we can handle it so it doesn't get sidelined but probably not.

[Duggie35]

I have no problem helping the "Working Poor" "Elderly Poor" or the "Actively Looking for Work Poor". I just have a real hard time giving hand outs to the "Able Bodied Poor" who just sit around and live off of the government without making a legitimate attempt to find "Any Kind" of "Legitimate Work" to help themselves!

If the "Majority" of the "Able Bodied Poor" were seeking and accepting even minimum wage jobs, it would go a long way to helping resolve the situation and allow the government to better assist those that legitimately need assistance.



Too many people are just sitting back living off the government making little or no attempt to find legitimate work!

[CajunJack55]

I have no problem helping the "Working Poor" "Elderly Poor" or the "Actively Looking for Work Poor". I just have a real hard time giving hand outs to the "Able Bodied Poor" who just sit around and live off of the government without making a legitimate attempt to find "Any Kind" of "Legitimate Work" to help themselves!

If the "Majority" of the "Able Bodied Poor" were seeking and accepting even minimum wage jobs, it would go a long way to helping resolve the situation and allow the government to better assist those that legitimately need assistance.



Too many people are just sitting back living off the government making little or no attempt to find legitimate work!

Although the article is about the "working poor," I think most reasonable people would agree with this. The problem is the realistic approach in enforcing it and what to do about these "free loaders" children who were never asked to be born in that situation and also how to stop those children from repeating the pattern.

[scotto_25]

The pattern will be repeated until eternity unless something is done. The laziness trickles off the free-loading parents onto the kids. The parents never encourage the kids to get summer jobs when old enough to learn the value of a dollar. The parents never encourage their kids to go to college. These parents have the "F the world mentality" & "they owe me mentality". You can definitely see this in the majority of kids once they hit middle school.

[Bigbuf]

Guys...like it or not free loading is not the entire problem. The one "emergency" the article is talking about, for Acadiana, is the drop in oil price. The area is way to attached to the price of oil due to the heavy presence of oil field service jobs. As the Oil price go down so does the capital expenditures. That brand new shiny park in Youngsville will dry up and blow away if the prices stay down for the next 3 years.

The only way to hedge against this is to have real diversity in Acadiana. Not diversity in services, like medical care, but other industries like construction, manufacturing and petro chem which will keep the oil field at arms length. Lafayette is NOT a mid career town.

[CajunJack55]

The only way to hedge against this is to have real diversity in Acadiana. Not diversity in services, like medical care, but other industries like construction, manufacturing and petro chem which will keep the oil field at arms length. Lafayette is NOT a mid career town.

Houston has done a great job at diversifying the past 20 years or so, I wasn't around when the last bust happened but talking to folks who were the city as a whole is faring better this go around. Of course it's never good news for those in the field though.