Poverty in Acadiana

[Bigbuf]

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.

No doubt, but we still are tied to black gold!

But of course Louisiana does this bass ackwards...like Jindal leaving Louisiana with millions in unfunded incentives.

[CajunEXPRESS]

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.

We let the didn't ask to be born free loader children be raised by the worst possible parents. Kind of hard to understand how you ever break this cycle.

[CajunEXPRESS]

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.

Oil exploration in Louisiana, long shore men in NOLA. Couple examples of ways an under educated person could make a good living. Those days are going.

[cajunhawk]

Oil exploration in Louisiana, long shore men in NOLA. Couple examples of ways an under educated person could make a good living. Those days are going.

Thanks to Legacy Lawsuits...onshore exploration is going to continue it's steady decline...even with a decent oil price.

[CajunT]

No doubt, but we still are tied to black gold!

But of course Louisiana does this bass ackwards...like Jindal leaving Louisiana with millions in unfunded incentives.

Jindal was not any different then every Governor before him including Blanco. Governor Blanco made no difficult budget decisions while the state of Louisiana received large amounts of Katrina funds creating economic growth. She and the legislature didn't monitor state spending knowing full well that the Katrina funds and artificial economic boost was not sustainable.

As for diversity, the city of Lafayette has had more Tech development and expansion of the medical industry in the last 5 to 10 years, then in any other time in the history of this community. It still hasn't been enough to balance, the Petro Industry, but we have made huge strides. And just like other areas of the country, the retail and service industries continue to grow in the area. But the wages are not as high as the Petro Industry.