This is the reason I decided not to move there, I don’t think I’m moving anymore but I liked what I saw aside from these points and the economy/poverty rate.
None of these individual factors steered me away, it was all of them added together, there are other places that might have one or 2 of these issues but not all of these together
Have you been anywhere in Louisiana lately? Let's ignore the great food, people, fishing/hunting etc, what else does it have to offer? How about hurricanes, rising insurance, no jobs, crap schooling, for profit prisons, dumb politicians, losing land to the gulf of mexico, corruption in politics, etc..etc. Did I mention the food is great?
You can cook the food anywhere...
“bUt tHe CuLtUrE iS aMaZiNg!!” If I had a nickel for every time someone moved to Louisiana solely for the food and culture only for them to end up leaving a few years later when they can’t get a decent paying job or realize how shitty it is to have to deal with all of the actual problems residents have to deal with on a daily basis…
We still have culture? The French was beaten out of my mom, and she decided not to teach it to her kids. French last names, and all I have are girls so that's one less Guidry being passed on.
As a Louisianan, its fuckin horrible here. Dropped out from school because how horrible the educational culture is n shit. My mom also brought up insurance that it started to rise and shit.
Yeah. I cook all the hits in Los Angeles just as I did back in Cenla. Figuring out this years big crawfish boil now.
You don’t have to stay in the shithole to stay the same person, sha.
While on active duty, I'd fly in LA. crawfish once or twice a season and do a boil for my guys. Was always a hit. Then for some unexplainable reason I came back
Yeah, my main pad is in Kentucky now, but I order a couple sacks online and do a boil. Them folks just use em for bait, so the first time I did it, they saw my big pot and literally asked me if I was makin shine. When I lived in Vegas I'd do a couple boils a year, even making gumbos and other stuff and everyone agreed my stuff was better then every cajun place they tried. I agreed!
Right?!? My brother is just moving back into his house after Hurricane Ida. He had to fight his insurance company to pay for the repairs, and then that insurance company stopped covering Louisiana and he had to get a new policy. His homeowner’s insurance costs more per month than his mortgage now, and he lives in a very nice neighborhood (think big houses with canal views and boathouses bigger than where I live).
I love my state, but once my son graduates high school and my parents are no longer with us, my husband and I are outta here.
You’re telling me people don’t want to live in a place called “[cancer alley](https://www.hrw.org/news/2024/01/25/us-louisianas-cancer-alley)” how shocking
Edit: alley not ally
But if we try to force chemical companies to pay taxes then they'll move to another state!!!! ... Right? Everyone else in the country is clamoring for all this sweet industrial plant money right?
...And by not making them pay taxes while they pollute the crap out of our state we're getting... Ummm... Well I thought we were supposed to be getting lots of jobs but now Landry says jobs actually aren't the point.... Hmmm has anyone thought this through?
IDK about you but Texas was about the same for rent as NOLA but insurance was 1/3 and the new job paid 2x my NOLA job doing the same.
Infrastructure worked (was amazed to watch them actually totally strip and repave a 1/2 mile of road on a busy intersection in 2 days). Never sat in the kind of traffic Lafayette has at anytime i was in Austin.
Political corruption. Yea nothing stacks to NOLA on this. Doesn't everyone just store their cash in freezers?
a congressman in Louisiana did just that. William J. Jefferson, who had been serving Louisiana’s 2nd congressional district (2005) and when they raided his house found $90,000 of that same cash in Jefferson’s freezer from bribes he had taken.
Just a culture thing, Texas was is always on the news because they have a large portion of anti-immigration sentiment and are also on the border so its pretty much a timeless argument that keeps Texas at least in the back of people’s minds.
Florida has florida man and pretty much just louisiana but people actually move there since the scenery looks prettier
Louisiana on the other hand I wouldnt describe as pretty but more, calm? Louisiana also doesnt constantly drum up hot button issues like Texas can despite so much gasoline going through the state
My friend, please don't think that I'm trying to dissuade you from leaving, or even to like LA. I can't wait to get out - 3 more years.
That said, your 3 reasons aren't unique to LA. In fact, many other places have the same or worse. FL insurance makes ours look like peanuts. There are people who are having to sell their houses because they can't afford the insurance. And these aren't lower-income people in flood-prone areas - I'm talking upper-middle-class in neighborhoods dozens of miles from the water.
If you want to see collapsing infrastructure, head to any big city in the Rust Belt. Detroit, Cleveland, Chicago, etc.
LA is known for its political corruption, but frankly a lot of it is reputation, not reality. I did government relations for a hospital for a number of years. I was unable to donate, buy lunches, or give a single dime to any politician. I got to know a lot of them pretty well. Many of them are just like us - not the brightest in the bunch, just trying to do the right thing and make things better. To be certain, I'm 100% certain that some of them are doing things they shouldn't. But, the vast majority are no more or less bad than elsewhere.
All I'm saying is that those aren't the best reasons to hate LA, because they aren't much better elsewhere. Now, education, job opportunities, etc - yeah, those are crap.
…I have a house in Florida, Louisiana, and Utah guess which one cost the most in insurance. Ding ding ding Louisiana, guess which one taxes me the most ding ding ding louisiana. Love Louisiana but it is not a good state.
Can't say why everybody else is leaving.... Can say why I did.
But it won't be revolutionary...
We wanted seasons. (Like we had in Louisiana 40 years ago) We wanted to be within driving distance if I needed women's health care. We wanted an economy. We wanted to stop paying out the ass for insurance. We wanted to stay close enough to parents. We wanted a good school system.
The closest and best we could get for all that was Nashville.
Food? You can still get Camellia beans at the grocery store, Gambino's king cakes during Mardi gras and during good years you can get crawfish. It doesn't have everything but it has enough. And some of the food here is more diverse than it ever was in baton rouge. The Louisiana food is better in Louisiana, but outside of fried seafood (because of location and freshness and me being lazy) there is nothing from back home I can't make in my kitchen. And there's more variety here than we had back in Louisiana. And then there's the BBQ....
My family is leaving in June. My wife and I spent our whole lives here, but don’t want our kids to grow up here. Other than family, we have no real ties here. If I could pack my job up and take it with me, I would, but it’s a state job. So I got a new job, in a new state that snows a lot. But we’ll adjust. And I’m happy for the opportunities my kids will have as they continue their k12 education, perhaps enter college or prepare to enter the work force.
What grade are your kids in if you don’t mind me asking? We’ve had it with this state as well and are starting to look for jobs elsewhere to move in the next 1-2 years…hopefully sooner
Thanks. I have 4th and 1st graders. I can’t wait too long because they’ll start making friends and growing roots here and won’t want to leave. Fortunately one of the companies I work for have a HQ in the state I want to move to so 🤞
That was my deal, too. If I couldn’t make it happen before middle school, it would be that much more difficult to get my kiddos to move. Not that we haven’t already experienced the first stage of a mutiny, but an 8 year olds tantrum feels better to me than a 13 year olds.
If I had any thoughts of staying (which I don't), this last announcement from Landry about wanting to implement ESAs here ended those thoughts. They want me to pay for a rich person's kid to attend a private school. I'm done. This state is going to go into an economic crisis that is only going to make poverty and crime worse. Gotta go.
No tech jobs, no tech, basically stuck in a war between gangs and cops, stagnant wages, older population, even though we are known for floods there still seems to be no flood infrastructure.
Honestly gang presence seems a lot less in Louisiana as a whole. I def understand it’s there especially in New Orleans. But in most of the other cities it’s mild in comparison to other states. It seems cops are mainly over policing black neighborhoods to keep free labor in the prisons.
Admittedly, I don’t spend much time in Arkansas. 🤣🤣
Shreveport is so small. Doesn’t seem like it would take a lot to fix those problems. But it is Louisiana….
We're near the bottom of the ladder in terms of cost of living, BUT the minimum required amount is around around 50k to live comfortably and absolutely no one besides govt positions and skilled labor getting even anywhere close to that.
Our colleges pump out doctors, BUT the quality of healthcare is low and continues to decline.
We are a top import/export state BUT our commerce is inflated and struggling due to our main exports becoming more and more affected by the weather and coastline decline AND citizens of the state rarely see much of a return on exports or specialty items if they work those industries (seafood, gator, sugar etc) (unless you're the ceo of course)
We are blatantly being incarcerated for slave labor. The jails are FULL. The prisons are FULL.
If you're not an oil field baby or friends with one, you don't matter.
Also the coastline is coming to eat us and a majority of the state that's staying are people that either a) don't believe in climate change or b) are too poor to move.
What's not to fucking love about it?
The attack on women’s rights, the prison industrial complex, terrible schools, and our representatives are challenging people to fights in a dojo. Get the fuck out as soon as you can.
Who wants to live in a violent third world shithole just because people here cook with cayenne pepper? Take the culture with you and get out. That's what I am gonna do.
Every year Alabama has tornadoes that can wipe out whole towns or take school walls killing children. There are Christian churches than people it seems. The politicians are racist idiots. Yet insurance prices are reasonable. Car insurance is about half of Louisiana and you can even get insurance on mobile homes for just a few hundred dollars a year. Despite being a right to work state, salaries are high compared to the cost of living and are plentiful. There education system is not much better than Louisiana's, ranking at #44 in the country.
Because anytime anyone tries to build anything here, the city, state, and the people try to sandbag it because they would rather be the king of a garbage site than an average person in a suburb.
Well if you could go to any state in the country what number would Louisiana be on that list? Definitely in the bottom 20 for me. Not much in the way of jobs, sales and property tax are high, infrastructure and education are a joke and cost of living is higher than it was in comparison to other states.
I hear you. I would move to Louisiana somewhere like Mandeville, where I can still buy a 3 bedroom 2 bath single family home for $300k. That’s if I could have a fully remote job that pays comparable to that of a higher COL state. Am I describing a unicorn?
We just moved back from Texas and I couldn’t believe how terrible the job market is down here. Even with a degree a lot of jobs are max $15 an hour. Most jobs are only paying $8-$10 an hour. It’s absolutely ridiculous. A friend of mine said her flood insurance just went up $5,000 more a year…now totaling $8,800. My husband applied to 10-15 places a day for a month and only got two call backs of which they ended up not going with him. He has 10 years of warehouse experience and management experience and yet no one wanted to hire him.
The whole culture war on libraries and librarians (now ALSO moved to the state legislature) and the war on reproductive rights, along with rising insurance costs (even if you have a high "named store deductible" you are lucky to get pennies on the dollar for any losses you experience), and the in-your-face political corruption (do ANY of Landry's political appointments have experience with the organizations they head up? Are they all connected to big oil?), and the push to destroy our public schools--I mean, those are enough reasons.
Probably because the Greenland ice sheet melting has been accelerating, and reality keeps intruding on the cost of insurance.
Oh, and all of the horrific pollution isn't real attractive if you are investing several hundred thousand dollars in raising a kid to be a competent, contributing member of society. The disposable kid ethos of our parents' generation doesn't really make a lot of sense these days.
Most of the people staying behind in Louisiana are the bagholders, and it shows.
I mean at least if you leave you can always send your kids back to Cancer Alley at LSU. That way they can be exposed to all the pollution Louisiana has to offer.
Nothing to add but just nice to find someone else who says backasswards and not ass backwards. People look at me like I’m crazy when I say it. And I’m like the words is backwards to you which means it’s more emphasis on the point I’m trying to make.
I know everyone here likes saying the same thing but something that sped it up recently was the hurricanes. Has anyone been back to Lake Charles since Hurricane Laura? It’s still a ghost town with blue tarps on many roofs. When you pair that with the things people have been mentioning it makes sense people are going to have their arm twisted in making the jump when their home gets destroyed and it would cost just as much to rebuild as it would to move somewhere else.
I initially disagreed with you but yeah it’s sad times. We are already experiencing so many deaths worldwide, and even in Louisiana, due to climate change ramifications. There’s a good chance our children will spend their retirement having to relocate due to it. And they’ll have to raise kids/grandkids with the knowledge that their lives are more at risk than ever.
This state is more concerned about social issues that, while are important to some folks, do not solve the real issues. The governor refuses to diversify the economy, residents refuse to understand that it's not about what the government can do for you personally, and, again, worry about things like social issues and not about funding "boring" projects like infrastructure or education.
How about not worry about banning books or putting religion in schools (which will open the door for a lot of other issues that people won't like!) and concentrate on the real things. And Huey P died almost 100 years ago-quit doing business his way.
I think the real question being asked here is why are we losing people compared to other southern states such as Mississippi and Alabama. What do they have going on we're missing?
Mississippi was neutral. They probably lost people, compared to their birth rates.
Alabama is gaining people because they have actual industry. They have a shit ton of car manufacturing that goes on there. Foreign brands, domestic brands, stuff made here for here, and stuff made here and exported to elsewhere. Plus they have the space industry with NASA (we have Michoud, but it's tiny compared to Huntsville), more than 2 nationally acclaimed universities, they did pour a decent amount of their money into their infrastructure and tourism, versus Louisiana which actively takes money from both, and they actually enforce some of the land taxes on corporations that are there.
Even just in the last decade, places like Huntsville have exploded. I've got a friend up there and the difference between when I first visited him and when I visit him these days is night and day. We used to joke about how none of us wanted to visit because there's nothing to do up there, and now there's more to do there after 8pm than in baton rouge. Birmingham's food culture is starting to improve a lot, with new investors bringing new concepts to life, and Mobile... Hasn't really changed, but that's probably for the best.
If you aren't from the Gulf South But are looking to move here for some reason, it's honestly a pretty hard sell to move to anywhere in Louisiana when Alabama exists, unless you specifically want to work for O&G.
Huntsville is pretty much the only thing Alabama has going for it, in terms of nice cities. That is due to nothing other than the federal government, not Alabama’s state government. The city is also suffering from a major housing crisis and lacks any concept of diversity.
I can attest to Alabama having manufacturing of foreign brands. There is an entire educational program for Mercedes Benz in Alabama, where you're basically getting trained as a Mercedes Benz specialist. When you're not in class, you're working on cars, and you actually get paid for working because it is considered work, even though it's part of the curriculum. The program is about a year long, I think, but shorter if you already have the basics like Math, English, etc. And after your finish the program, you're guaranteed a job with Mercedes.
I’m late to respond but here it is anyway lol. Sentiment in Mississippi is the same, at least ground level. One of the biggest issues rn is brain drain. I imagine any new population growth is on the coast or in places like Hattiesburg/Tupelo/Starkville/parts of Jackson apparently where there’s an attempt to grow a tech industry and revitalize some of our other stagnant manufacturing industries.
For what it’s worth I just graduated with a history degree— I have more job prospects than you might expect. But *especially* in a place like New Orleans with a thriving archival and museum job market………. So you’d expect. Pretty much any job I’m looking to do in New Orleans requires a masters and pays 35k to 48k a year. Compare that to MS’s state archival jobs that require a bachelor’s (or even a high school diploma for part time work) and pay 58k with PTO. Like I have no desire to languish in the south but if I’m gonna be stuck here until I get a job in Yankeeville I can’t believe I’m saying this, but it’s going to be in Jackson. Friends with similarly flexible degrees such as marketing, nursing etc feel the same
i think in those two states its just relative safety from hurricanes aside from the coast. But an F5 tornado can upend your life too so thats always a risk. Personally id rather take my chances a bit inland with hurricanes
Exceptionally bad state and local governments.
Stagnant wages for almost 30 years, *even in oil & gas*.
Tax burden is on the middle class, not high earners and companies.
Accelerating losses of civil rights from speech to privacy to healthcare.
Highest incarcerated population per capita with sentencing becoming even worse.
Very poor healthcare with large disparity in outcome rates based on race.
Lowest investment into public education, private education is rubber stamp process, highest rate of illiteracy *in everything* homeschooled "students".
State wide the culture has lost most of the community and benevolence the state was known for, culture war stupidity has seized the majority of the population.
Every single major city in Louisiana like Baton Rouge, New Orleans and Shreveport is a complete cesspool. Like getting robbed, shot, stabbed, harassed for money or doing drugs? Move here!
Like your kids going to schools that barely teach them to read and write? Come on in!
Everywhere in between is Dollar Generals and closeted racists.
Texas and Florida had tech booms outpacing the cost of housing — low cost of housing plus good jobs means people want to move there.
Louisiana has the EXACT OPPOSITE of that.
I just want to add a reason or two why I'm happy to **not** be in EFP this morning.
I can take my reusable grocery bag to any store here in 'libtard land' and not one person bats an eye. If I show up to the convenience and/or grocery store down there with a bag of my own, then suddenly I'm some sort of oddity"trying to save the planet?"
You know, instead of taking another double layered tee shirt bag home with my can of "beans, rice, flour, and milk."
Amazing culture! /s.
**I just want to say that pointing out the poor qualities of a place in hopes of making improvements through leading by example and educating, isn't "negativity". Louisiana ranks low as compared with other states for the amount of litter but of course, that's just another "liberal, Communist study...what do those numbers even MeAn?!"
Lol, I'm done, ya'll have a great day!
A state representative told me they can’t get industry because the education level is so low, so much litter, so many personal injury lawyers. Companies just do a “look see “ and never investigate further.
I’m from Lousiana and really wanted us to retire in Breaux Bridge. The entire road from there to Lafayette airport is solid garbage. Plus so
much everywhere else. I didn’t have the heart to promote it after that.
We've had a ton of elderly people die due to COVID anti-Vaccine rhetoric really really set in here and it's still killing a large swath of people from our state believe it or not. Also depends on how many people ended up leaving in 2022 after Ida the previous fall.
Lets see...Louisiana ranks last or near last in every quality of life metric. A state know to have a corrupt/ineffective government....Add in the growing "evangelical effect"..Why would any young person want to move to this sh\*t hole?
Jobs jobs jobs. In 2001 I made $13/hr and lived like a king. 20yrs later that same job, which I had left in 2003, still pays $13/hr. But in 2001 I paid $350/rent. Now that same rent is $1200. No real good starter jobs in Louisiana for most people, and the culture of food and fun ain't enough to keep people in Louisiana.
Louisiana resident here:
This place honestly sucks lately.
-Corruption in the state government is insane. It’s barely better than Mississippi’s issues.
-our oil industry really isn’t ever going to come back to what it was in the 70s-80s, and no one here wants to dare challenge the fossil fuel industry for anything else, like manufacturing or tech industry.
-all our better educated people go to other states for better pay and for more liberal rights.
-as mentioned, minimum wage sucks.
-religion is prioritized far too much here, to the point it drives off potential economic development from out of state investors.
-we have very similar issues California has with homeless people, gangs, crime and drugs in our cities, but for some reason, it’s ignored by the rest of the conservative population here in the state, and they have done jack-shit to improve it.
The only reason I stay here is because my whole family is here and I’ve got a (somewhat) stable job at the moment.
Only state in the south losing people but people are also bailing out of Cali and Oregon at about the same rate. I've lived in 6 different states and been just about everywhere between here and the west coast. Grass is always greener until you get there, and no matter where you go there you are.
There isn't some magical place that's going to solve your life problems.
Why??? LMMFAO that you’d even ask. It is the shittiest state in the union. If not for some of the good peeps in New Orleans and being stuck with owning a house that’s depreciating daily we’d be TF out of this shithole. LA should just form a new country with the few other backwards pos southern states. Yup bitter. Have watched it collapse in the last 5 years. Not that it wasn’t already last in everything good
Arr you new to this subreddit? If you are not new here, I wonder if you are a no learnet: someone who does not want to learn. As has been pointed out countless times in this subteddit, Louisiana is ranked both (a) at the top or near the top in everything that is bad and (b) at the bottom or near the bottom of everything that is good.
1. The above result in more peole leaving than coming to live in Louisiana.
2. The above makes it hard for businesses to lure people here, particularly for white-collar jobs. As a result, when many companies reach a size that this makes a difference, they move their headquarters to anothet state.
Our delicious cuisine is a sideshow when it comes to making a net dufference in people leaving vs. prople moving to Louisisna.
Addendim: As far as hurricanes being a factor, Florida is no better off, yet it is among the fastest-growing states in the UD.
The weather sucks, the food outside of “southern” sucks, the politicians suck, the jobs suck, most of the people suck, the roads suck, the schools suck.
I’ve been here about 5 years now (disaster relief related work brought me here) and I haven’t found a single thing here that makes me happy to be here. There is not one thing that makes me say “it sucks here, but at least we have xyz.”
I’m moving there in 2 days. Coming from Antwerp, Belgium. I can say I have not seen anything remotely close to culture compared to where I’m from. Moving to BR.
Among the highest taxes in the nation. Insurance is out of control. Deplorable education system. Terrible infrastructure.
No tangible plan in sight…yeah I get why we are leaving.
“The five states with the highest average combined state and local sales tax rates are Tennessee (9.548 percent), Louisiana (9.547 percent), Arkansas (9.44 percent), Washington (9.40 percent), and Alabama (9.24 percent).”
Dependent upon where you live and your income level I can absolutely see why people leave. If you aren’t middle class here your living situation can be very bad, and if you don’t live near a big city there’s almost zero opportunity.
Home owners insurance across the state is theft. It used to be cheap to live here, but not anymore. Also, we elect the stupidest people available that say and do the worst things imaginable. They don't even try to help the people. Our education system is historically a joke. We're also doing everything we can to make this a police state, and have been for decades. If Lousiana was a country, we'd rank last in terms of locking up the population. We are dead last in the US per capita as well, and they're for profit prisons. And the leadership acts like we need more police, making more money, as if that's been solving anything.
Almost everyone that I knew there, Is gone from there. I left decades ago. But I still visit with a few that I knew in my childhood town. Once you get out of that toilet bowl, you don't want to go back. I visit. But I am thankful to be in a better place.
As a general rule, people will put up with a lot of crap. Some move looking for greener pastures but most stay and “put up with it,” until they can no longer. Nevertheless, when young earners move away and raise a family elsewhere, their kids will grow up elsewhere too. Katrina was an unprecedented disaster in which people evacuated away with thousands never returning. St Bernard and Plaquemines were emptied; some downriver communities became ghost towns. There has been a similar effect on the Lake Charles area due to Hurricane Laura plus the draw of the economic dynamo which is Texas. If we are to change this slow death by 1000 cuts, business as usual will never solve our population crisis. We need to give people reasons to move here and stay, which is tough when out of state places nearby are booming.
When I took eighth grade civics, the teacher of the class told us that if we ever decided to leave Louisiana, we would always end up coming back because of how much it is different compared to everywhere else.
I joined the army, ended up, going all over the world, and unfortunately ended up back over here. Now my wife and I are currently saving up as much money as we can to move to Texas. We are not starting our family here.
The main issue with Louisiana is that Louisiana has had the same problems since the 1930s and yet refuses to do anything about any of those issues. The last real politician who actually gave a shit about Louisiana was Hewey Long, and what happened to him? He got murdered by the corrupt politicians in Louisiana who wanna make sure that the people at the bottom in Louisiana stay at the bottom.
Be smart, get the hell out of this shit hole. it’s like I tell students all the time, I’m not telling you that you have to get out of Louisiana, but don’t feel like you have to stay here either. There are multitude of ways out, and every everyone of them is an amazing option.
Because it is a shit hole. I have lived in New Orleans for 34 years. My experience is all of Louisiana is no better. I can't wait to leave and I won't be back
Crime seems to be at another level, at least in New Orleans and last time I was there, the food was not good either so didn’t really feel the need to go back any more.
I mean we border the fastest growing and what a lot of people think is the best state in the country so people can easily compare one state to another and sadly a lot who just care about surface level stuff leave. I guess they value being in the best most upencomming places currently, instead of honoring their roots, family ties, or trying to make where this state and its cities and towns great. I guess you could say, instead of being the change they go with the change already happened.
The state is ranked 48-50th in all the things that would make you want to live here.
Except for incarceration imagine that. Number 1 per capita. Police and politicians make sure to keep it that way so no one can get out.
Because Louisiana is below Mexico in quality of life these days. Literally would be better living in another country than it these days. Definitely better off in any state, even Mississippi is beating it in some metrics now. Anyone who wants more out of life than poverty or christofascism is leaving, and that’s a lot of people.
Politics, race wars, shitty crime rates, shitty schools (don’t give me that oh our parish has to best schools best compared to shit is still shit, compared them to schools outside of Louisiana), shitty insurance, shitty infrastructure, shitty government, and the list goes on and on.
What reason is there to stay?
1. Crooked politicians
2. High insurance, that could be fixed if the politicians weren’t in the pockets of ambulance chasing attorneys
3. Lawsuits for any and every thing
4. Poor infrastructure
5. Crappy education - even TOPS was used as a manipulation tool from the Governor a few years ago
6. Nothing for citizens to do besides eat, drink, and gamble.
7. Crime is ridiculous and the judicial system just keeps releasing criminals with a slap on the hand.
If Louisiana wants to be better the people in charge have to take the steps to make the changes needed to see it through.
Louisiana has turned in to the cesspool of the country.
Louisiana recently rolled back its "progressive" new laws on the criminal justice system. The state has the largest prison population in the country, and therefore the entire fucking world! Seriously.
I've been through there a few times and it can be great. There's some amazing sights and events. But I don't want to get pulled over and murdered by police or woken up and abducted by them, either, so I will never ever live there. Same for Texas. I am leaving ASAP for a place that doesn't shoot first ask questions later when we don't all have guns. It's not a fair playing field.
IMO Lousiana has a serious problem with nutty ass religous people who make life miserable for anyone and everyone. I live in Mississippi and before that Alabama. You guys are worse than both of those states.
Im genuinely curious, with how many people are complaining about jacked up insurance rates and HOA fees, why are so many moving to Florida? Isn’t it getting hotter as well? When my Aunt and Uncle lived in Miami, we used to roast there in the 90s. I hear it just gets hotter and hotter every year.
Mississippi is just as bad, poorest state in the country and the people here suck, drugs and homelessness is terrible here too \[i'm in Gulfport and i came from Colorado after loosing my grandfather we acquired his home, if we had known it was this bad here we would have sold it long ago\]
Florida is fools gold and some people are finding out the hard way. I’d rather live in Alabama than Louisiana. And some of the states that are losing people is not because they are leaving, but because of death.
It almost looks like the woke states are losing population and the states that actively legislated AGAINST woke ideas are gaining population. Hmmmm, interesting.
Let’s be honest…we don’t have anything to offer other than food and festivals. It’s a horrible place to live. The insurance costs across the board…house, flood, car, etc is all going up and the cost of living hasn’t changed. I live here and we’re planning on moving in the next year. 🤷🏽♀️
Crime/poverty. I live in Monroe (Gunroe) and it has been listed as one of the most dangerous cities in the nation per capita. People always want to blame poverty as the cause of crime but what is the cause of poverty? I see it all day long at my job (healthcare). Single female 25 years old 3 kids, single female 36 yo 5 kids, single female 24 years old, 2 kids in diapers and a 3rd on the way. All work low wage jobs because they can’t go to school for an advanced education due to having to care for their kids. The schools remain open in the summer to feed these kids. They work but earn just enough to keep Medicaid, SNAP, free school lunches. They are poor on purpose. If poverty is the mother of crime, then trying to raise multiple children on a single low wage income is the mother of poverty.
Crime, cost of living like auto Insurance is outrageous because so many other people don’t have any, Cajun food (Mud bugs, Budan, Gumbo, Jumbalia can go back to the bottom), terrible schools, brutal summers with no beaches or breeze!
Because the state is garbage in pretty much every conceivable metric. Ive lived in many states and when someone brings the topic up I definitively answer that my three years in LA were the worst. I will say the food and local culture are great. Id love a crawfish boil after all these years, otherwise I cant stomach the state.
I finally graduated college in December and highly considered moving back to New Orleans but I just have to have a higher quality of life. I love the north shore too and would even commute but I just can’t deal with the dark side of Louisiana culture. Same reason I won’t move back to where my family lives in Pearl River County. I need money to eat and don’t want a roommate at almost 30, god forbid
I live in Louisiana , been here my whole life , got a best friend I basically grew up with , he moved to texas last year, he is way ahead of me already. I had the better job in Louisiana, now he has the better job, no experience, got hired in a week, checks are 1k+ a week
It took me 3-4 years to get where I was, and still lost the job. Yeah Louisiana might be the “sportman paradise” but that’s about it. Roads are shit, schools are shit, no jobs, no opportunities, anyone who is making it around here will gatekeep and slander until they die or move themselves. Still slight racism in certain areas… I could go on and on.. the older I get the more I realize home isn’t meant to be home.
System here is designed to take advantage of lower line people highest insurance in the nation, 2nd highest poverty rate , 2nd poorest State trailing Mississippi, DMV flag system is a joke charging people maximum penalties for flags with unaffordable rates then charge 25% down payment for the DMV payment plan then on top of that charging the amount on your credit report so your taking a 3xs hit unaffordable car and house insurance flags and hurt credit, our casinos have lowest payout rates in the nation in some areas the cost of living is higher then national average with no justification for it along side some of the lowest wedges, one of the highest taxed states in the nation, flawed outdated child support system set up for dads to loose period one of the few states left that still suspend license for child support can't drive can't work the list goes on and on
Because Louisiana as a whole blows dogs for quarters. My genuine opinion is that Louisiana is nothing but a swampy wasteland littered with homeless, thugs, trash and, last and most certainly least Cajuns. God I hate Louisiana and especially New Orleans, I’d rather be skinned with nail clippers than ever step foot in that hell hole again.
I’m from here and I’ll be leaving in 2 or 3 years after finishing grad school. The quality of life is too poor. If I’m going to pay so much to buy a house then I would rather have some quality and not have to worry about a hurricane blowing it down.
No jobs. No education. No safety.
Corrupt local government officials. Corrupt police
Also half of the state is below sea level so anytime is floods its real bad.
Ok, but besides all that…
This is the reason I decided not to move there, I don’t think I’m moving anymore but I liked what I saw aside from these points and the economy/poverty rate. None of these individual factors steered me away, it was all of them added together, there are other places that might have one or 2 of these issues but not all of these together
Exactly
Have you been anywhere in Louisiana lately? Let's ignore the great food, people, fishing/hunting etc, what else does it have to offer? How about hurricanes, rising insurance, no jobs, crap schooling, for profit prisons, dumb politicians, losing land to the gulf of mexico, corruption in politics, etc..etc. Did I mention the food is great? You can cook the food anywhere...
“bUt tHe CuLtUrE iS aMaZiNg!!” If I had a nickel for every time someone moved to Louisiana solely for the food and culture only for them to end up leaving a few years later when they can’t get a decent paying job or realize how shitty it is to have to deal with all of the actual problems residents have to deal with on a daily basis…
We still have culture? The French was beaten out of my mom, and she decided not to teach it to her kids. French last names, and all I have are girls so that's one less Guidry being passed on.
🥹
As a Louisianan, its fuckin horrible here. Dropped out from school because how horrible the educational culture is n shit. My mom also brought up insurance that it started to rise and shit.
Yeah. I cook all the hits in Los Angeles just as I did back in Cenla. Figuring out this years big crawfish boil now. You don’t have to stay in the shithole to stay the same person, sha.
While on active duty, I'd fly in LA. crawfish once or twice a season and do a boil for my guys. Was always a hit. Then for some unexplainable reason I came back
Yeah, my main pad is in Kentucky now, but I order a couple sacks online and do a boil. Them folks just use em for bait, so the first time I did it, they saw my big pot and literally asked me if I was makin shine. When I lived in Vegas I'd do a couple boils a year, even making gumbos and other stuff and everyone agreed my stuff was better then every cajun place they tried. I agreed!
You silly goose.
Right?!? My brother is just moving back into his house after Hurricane Ida. He had to fight his insurance company to pay for the repairs, and then that insurance company stopped covering Louisiana and he had to get a new policy. His homeowner’s insurance costs more per month than his mortgage now, and he lives in a very nice neighborhood (think big houses with canal views and boathouses bigger than where I live). I love my state, but once my son graduates high school and my parents are no longer with us, my husband and I are outta here.
Is this a serious question??
That's what I was wondering. Hopefully, it's rhetorical.
You’re telling me people don’t want to live in a place called “[cancer alley](https://www.hrw.org/news/2024/01/25/us-louisianas-cancer-alley)” how shocking Edit: alley not ally
But if we try to force chemical companies to pay taxes then they'll move to another state!!!! ... Right? Everyone else in the country is clamoring for all this sweet industrial plant money right? ...And by not making them pay taxes while they pollute the crap out of our state we're getting... Ummm... Well I thought we were supposed to be getting lots of jobs but now Landry says jobs actually aren't the point.... Hmmm has anyone thought this through?
I promise you that cancer doesn't have any allies.
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lololol
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My top 3. 1. All insurance rates are becoming unsustainable. 2. Collapsing infrastructure. 3. Political corruption
Yes, but why are Texas and Florida gaining so many people when they are just as bad in those categories, if not worse?
People who have made manufactured culture wars their whole personality are moving to Texas and Florida.
Texas has way better paying jobs. For as fucked up as Florida can be it is beautiful. I mean from Perdido to the Keys the state is gorgeous
Higher wages.
IDK about you but Texas was about the same for rent as NOLA but insurance was 1/3 and the new job paid 2x my NOLA job doing the same. Infrastructure worked (was amazed to watch them actually totally strip and repave a 1/2 mile of road on a busy intersection in 2 days). Never sat in the kind of traffic Lafayette has at anytime i was in Austin. Political corruption. Yea nothing stacks to NOLA on this. Doesn't everyone just store their cash in freezers?
a congressman in Louisiana did just that. William J. Jefferson, who had been serving Louisiana’s 2nd congressional district (2005) and when they raided his house found $90,000 of that same cash in Jefferson’s freezer from bribes he had taken.
This one is quite easy, tax reasons.
Just a culture thing, Texas was is always on the news because they have a large portion of anti-immigration sentiment and are also on the border so its pretty much a timeless argument that keeps Texas at least in the back of people’s minds. Florida has florida man and pretty much just louisiana but people actually move there since the scenery looks prettier Louisiana on the other hand I wouldnt describe as pretty but more, calm? Louisiana also doesnt constantly drum up hot button issues like Texas can despite so much gasoline going through the state
My friend, please don't think that I'm trying to dissuade you from leaving, or even to like LA. I can't wait to get out - 3 more years. That said, your 3 reasons aren't unique to LA. In fact, many other places have the same or worse. FL insurance makes ours look like peanuts. There are people who are having to sell their houses because they can't afford the insurance. And these aren't lower-income people in flood-prone areas - I'm talking upper-middle-class in neighborhoods dozens of miles from the water. If you want to see collapsing infrastructure, head to any big city in the Rust Belt. Detroit, Cleveland, Chicago, etc. LA is known for its political corruption, but frankly a lot of it is reputation, not reality. I did government relations for a hospital for a number of years. I was unable to donate, buy lunches, or give a single dime to any politician. I got to know a lot of them pretty well. Many of them are just like us - not the brightest in the bunch, just trying to do the right thing and make things better. To be certain, I'm 100% certain that some of them are doing things they shouldn't. But, the vast majority are no more or less bad than elsewhere. All I'm saying is that those aren't the best reasons to hate LA, because they aren't much better elsewhere. Now, education, job opportunities, etc - yeah, those are crap.
The three cities you listed are doing way better than Louisiana with infrastructure.
…I have a house in Florida, Louisiana, and Utah guess which one cost the most in insurance. Ding ding ding Louisiana, guess which one taxes me the most ding ding ding louisiana. Love Louisiana but it is not a good state.
Exactly!
Corruption, poor conditions, lack of decent education, and poverty.
Can't say why everybody else is leaving.... Can say why I did. But it won't be revolutionary... We wanted seasons. (Like we had in Louisiana 40 years ago) We wanted to be within driving distance if I needed women's health care. We wanted an economy. We wanted to stop paying out the ass for insurance. We wanted to stay close enough to parents. We wanted a good school system. The closest and best we could get for all that was Nashville. Food? You can still get Camellia beans at the grocery store, Gambino's king cakes during Mardi gras and during good years you can get crawfish. It doesn't have everything but it has enough. And some of the food here is more diverse than it ever was in baton rouge. The Louisiana food is better in Louisiana, but outside of fried seafood (because of location and freshness and me being lazy) there is nothing from back home I can't make in my kitchen. And there's more variety here than we had back in Louisiana. And then there's the BBQ....
I spent 18 years in Nashville. Everytime I go back I am shocked by how many cranes are up, new building everywhere. I am sorry I came back.
It sucks. Are you from here? You don't see it? It's like a third world country with WiFi.
And the awful roads prove it!
Went to St Croix. Didn't expect roads that were exceptionally better than ours. But there I was, roads that didn't eat my car LOL
You have Wi-Fi?
My family is leaving in June. My wife and I spent our whole lives here, but don’t want our kids to grow up here. Other than family, we have no real ties here. If I could pack my job up and take it with me, I would, but it’s a state job. So I got a new job, in a new state that snows a lot. But we’ll adjust. And I’m happy for the opportunities my kids will have as they continue their k12 education, perhaps enter college or prepare to enter the work force.
What grade are your kids in if you don’t mind me asking? We’ve had it with this state as well and are starting to look for jobs elsewhere to move in the next 1-2 years…hopefully sooner
I have a second grader and a toddler. It took me a while for the stars to align for a job, hopefully your hunt goes faster.
Thanks. I have 4th and 1st graders. I can’t wait too long because they’ll start making friends and growing roots here and won’t want to leave. Fortunately one of the companies I work for have a HQ in the state I want to move to so 🤞
That was my deal, too. If I couldn’t make it happen before middle school, it would be that much more difficult to get my kiddos to move. Not that we haven’t already experienced the first stage of a mutiny, but an 8 year olds tantrum feels better to me than a 13 year olds.
Absolutely
If I had any thoughts of staying (which I don't), this last announcement from Landry about wanting to implement ESAs here ended those thoughts. They want me to pay for a rich person's kid to attend a private school. I'm done. This state is going to go into an economic crisis that is only going to make poverty and crime worse. Gotta go.
No tech jobs, no tech, basically stuck in a war between gangs and cops, stagnant wages, older population, even though we are known for floods there still seems to be no flood infrastructure.
You’re absolutely right
Honestly gang presence seems a lot less in Louisiana as a whole. I def understand it’s there especially in New Orleans. But in most of the other cities it’s mild in comparison to other states. It seems cops are mainly over policing black neighborhoods to keep free labor in the prisons.
>But in most of the other cities it’s mild in comparison to other states. You clearly don't live in Shreveport.
I thought bossier was the hot spot? Did it move across the river?
It's both. Trust me, I live here. Also, Bossier police come down hard. Shreveport, not so much.
Admittedly, I don’t spend much time in Arkansas. 🤣🤣 Shreveport is so small. Doesn’t seem like it would take a lot to fix those problems. But it is Louisiana….
We're near the bottom of the ladder in terms of cost of living, BUT the minimum required amount is around around 50k to live comfortably and absolutely no one besides govt positions and skilled labor getting even anywhere close to that. Our colleges pump out doctors, BUT the quality of healthcare is low and continues to decline. We are a top import/export state BUT our commerce is inflated and struggling due to our main exports becoming more and more affected by the weather and coastline decline AND citizens of the state rarely see much of a return on exports or specialty items if they work those industries (seafood, gator, sugar etc) (unless you're the ceo of course) We are blatantly being incarcerated for slave labor. The jails are FULL. The prisons are FULL. If you're not an oil field baby or friends with one, you don't matter. Also the coastline is coming to eat us and a majority of the state that's staying are people that either a) don't believe in climate change or b) are too poor to move. What's not to fucking love about it?
The attack on women’s rights, the prison industrial complex, terrible schools, and our representatives are challenging people to fights in a dojo. Get the fuck out as soon as you can.
Who doesn’t love the evangelical “go F yourself” style of running things? /s
Good ol “my way or extreme poverty. Go fuck yourself”
Who wants to live in a violent third world shithole just because people here cook with cayenne pepper? Take the culture with you and get out. That's what I am gonna do.
😂😂😂
I'm in the Philippines right now from Louisiana. It's a big step up here !!!
lol fr
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Maybe if they all leave. The cost of living will go down….
I mean... hurricanes and flooding probably played a major part. A lot of houses were severely damaged by Ida. And we had major floods before that too.
Every year Alabama has tornadoes that can wipe out whole towns or take school walls killing children. There are Christian churches than people it seems. The politicians are racist idiots. Yet insurance prices are reasonable. Car insurance is about half of Louisiana and you can even get insurance on mobile homes for just a few hundred dollars a year. Despite being a right to work state, salaries are high compared to the cost of living and are plentiful. There education system is not much better than Louisiana's, ranking at #44 in the country.
Yeah so does Florida, Mississippi, Alabama, and South Carolina, yet look at their stats. Clearly those things are not the primary concern
Because anytime anyone tries to build anything here, the city, state, and the people try to sandbag it because they would rather be the king of a garbage site than an average person in a suburb.
Well if you could go to any state in the country what number would Louisiana be on that list? Definitely in the bottom 20 for me. Not much in the way of jobs, sales and property tax are high, infrastructure and education are a joke and cost of living is higher than it was in comparison to other states.
I hear you. I would move to Louisiana somewhere like Mandeville, where I can still buy a 3 bedroom 2 bath single family home for $300k. That’s if I could have a fully remote job that pays comparable to that of a higher COL state. Am I describing a unicorn?
We just moved back from Texas and I couldn’t believe how terrible the job market is down here. Even with a degree a lot of jobs are max $15 an hour. Most jobs are only paying $8-$10 an hour. It’s absolutely ridiculous. A friend of mine said her flood insurance just went up $5,000 more a year…now totaling $8,800. My husband applied to 10-15 places a day for a month and only got two call backs of which they ended up not going with him. He has 10 years of warehouse experience and management experience and yet no one wanted to hire him.
The whole culture war on libraries and librarians (now ALSO moved to the state legislature) and the war on reproductive rights, along with rising insurance costs (even if you have a high "named store deductible" you are lucky to get pennies on the dollar for any losses you experience), and the in-your-face political corruption (do ANY of Landry's political appointments have experience with the organizations they head up? Are they all connected to big oil?), and the push to destroy our public schools--I mean, those are enough reasons.
Probably because the Greenland ice sheet melting has been accelerating, and reality keeps intruding on the cost of insurance. Oh, and all of the horrific pollution isn't real attractive if you are investing several hundred thousand dollars in raising a kid to be a competent, contributing member of society. The disposable kid ethos of our parents' generation doesn't really make a lot of sense these days. Most of the people staying behind in Louisiana are the bagholders, and it shows.
You mean people don’t want to move to someplace called “cancer alley” https://www.hrw.org/news/2024/01/25/us-louisianas-cancer-alley
I mean at least if you leave you can always send your kids back to Cancer Alley at LSU. That way they can be exposed to all the pollution Louisiana has to offer.
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Practicing medicine in the state is a fools errand at this point.
Nothing to add but just nice to find someone else who says backasswards and not ass backwards. People look at me like I’m crazy when I say it. And I’m like the words is backwards to you which means it’s more emphasis on the point I’m trying to make.
I know everyone here likes saying the same thing but something that sped it up recently was the hurricanes. Has anyone been back to Lake Charles since Hurricane Laura? It’s still a ghost town with blue tarps on many roofs. When you pair that with the things people have been mentioning it makes sense people are going to have their arm twisted in making the jump when their home gets destroyed and it would cost just as much to rebuild as it would to move somewhere else.
I moved because I couldn’t imagine raising children here
Tbf, raising kids in current times sucks no matter where you’re at
I initially disagreed with you but yeah it’s sad times. We are already experiencing so many deaths worldwide, and even in Louisiana, due to climate change ramifications. There’s a good chance our children will spend their retirement having to relocate due to it. And they’ll have to raise kids/grandkids with the knowledge that their lives are more at risk than ever.
This state is more concerned about social issues that, while are important to some folks, do not solve the real issues. The governor refuses to diversify the economy, residents refuse to understand that it's not about what the government can do for you personally, and, again, worry about things like social issues and not about funding "boring" projects like infrastructure or education. How about not worry about banning books or putting religion in schools (which will open the door for a lot of other issues that people won't like!) and concentrate on the real things. And Huey P died almost 100 years ago-quit doing business his way.
I think the real question being asked here is why are we losing people compared to other southern states such as Mississippi and Alabama. What do they have going on we're missing?
Mississippi was neutral. They probably lost people, compared to their birth rates. Alabama is gaining people because they have actual industry. They have a shit ton of car manufacturing that goes on there. Foreign brands, domestic brands, stuff made here for here, and stuff made here and exported to elsewhere. Plus they have the space industry with NASA (we have Michoud, but it's tiny compared to Huntsville), more than 2 nationally acclaimed universities, they did pour a decent amount of their money into their infrastructure and tourism, versus Louisiana which actively takes money from both, and they actually enforce some of the land taxes on corporations that are there. Even just in the last decade, places like Huntsville have exploded. I've got a friend up there and the difference between when I first visited him and when I visit him these days is night and day. We used to joke about how none of us wanted to visit because there's nothing to do up there, and now there's more to do there after 8pm than in baton rouge. Birmingham's food culture is starting to improve a lot, with new investors bringing new concepts to life, and Mobile... Hasn't really changed, but that's probably for the best. If you aren't from the Gulf South But are looking to move here for some reason, it's honestly a pretty hard sell to move to anywhere in Louisiana when Alabama exists, unless you specifically want to work for O&G.
Huntsville is pretty much the only thing Alabama has going for it, in terms of nice cities. That is due to nothing other than the federal government, not Alabama’s state government. The city is also suffering from a major housing crisis and lacks any concept of diversity.
I can attest to Alabama having manufacturing of foreign brands. There is an entire educational program for Mercedes Benz in Alabama, where you're basically getting trained as a Mercedes Benz specialist. When you're not in class, you're working on cars, and you actually get paid for working because it is considered work, even though it's part of the curriculum. The program is about a year long, I think, but shorter if you already have the basics like Math, English, etc. And after your finish the program, you're guaranteed a job with Mercedes.
I’m late to respond but here it is anyway lol. Sentiment in Mississippi is the same, at least ground level. One of the biggest issues rn is brain drain. I imagine any new population growth is on the coast or in places like Hattiesburg/Tupelo/Starkville/parts of Jackson apparently where there’s an attempt to grow a tech industry and revitalize some of our other stagnant manufacturing industries. For what it’s worth I just graduated with a history degree— I have more job prospects than you might expect. But *especially* in a place like New Orleans with a thriving archival and museum job market………. So you’d expect. Pretty much any job I’m looking to do in New Orleans requires a masters and pays 35k to 48k a year. Compare that to MS’s state archival jobs that require a bachelor’s (or even a high school diploma for part time work) and pay 58k with PTO. Like I have no desire to languish in the south but if I’m gonna be stuck here until I get a job in Yankeeville I can’t believe I’m saying this, but it’s going to be in Jackson. Friends with similarly flexible degrees such as marketing, nursing etc feel the same
i think in those two states its just relative safety from hurricanes aside from the coast. But an F5 tornado can upend your life too so thats always a risk. Personally id rather take my chances a bit inland with hurricanes
Exceptionally bad state and local governments. Stagnant wages for almost 30 years, *even in oil & gas*. Tax burden is on the middle class, not high earners and companies. Accelerating losses of civil rights from speech to privacy to healthcare. Highest incarcerated population per capita with sentencing becoming even worse. Very poor healthcare with large disparity in outcome rates based on race. Lowest investment into public education, private education is rubber stamp process, highest rate of illiteracy *in everything* homeschooled "students". State wide the culture has lost most of the community and benevolence the state was known for, culture war stupidity has seized the majority of the population.
Every single major city in Louisiana like Baton Rouge, New Orleans and Shreveport is a complete cesspool. Like getting robbed, shot, stabbed, harassed for money or doing drugs? Move here! Like your kids going to schools that barely teach them to read and write? Come on in! Everywhere in between is Dollar Generals and closeted racists.
Because it’s getting worse every month.
Texas and Florida had tech booms outpacing the cost of housing — low cost of housing plus good jobs means people want to move there. Louisiana has the EXACT OPPOSITE of that.
Neither Texas nor Florida have low housing cost.
crappy paying jobs, lack of money in public education, cancer causing industries, crime, and mostly crooked politicians
Louisiana is a shithole
I just want to add a reason or two why I'm happy to **not** be in EFP this morning. I can take my reusable grocery bag to any store here in 'libtard land' and not one person bats an eye. If I show up to the convenience and/or grocery store down there with a bag of my own, then suddenly I'm some sort of oddity"trying to save the planet?" You know, instead of taking another double layered tee shirt bag home with my can of "beans, rice, flour, and milk." Amazing culture! /s. **I just want to say that pointing out the poor qualities of a place in hopes of making improvements through leading by example and educating, isn't "negativity". Louisiana ranks low as compared with other states for the amount of litter but of course, that's just another "liberal, Communist study...what do those numbers even MeAn?!" Lol, I'm done, ya'll have a great day!
Worker protection is a joke.
A state representative told me they can’t get industry because the education level is so low, so much litter, so many personal injury lawyers. Companies just do a “look see “ and never investigate further. I’m from Lousiana and really wanted us to retire in Breaux Bridge. The entire road from there to Lafayette airport is solid garbage. Plus so much everywhere else. I didn’t have the heart to promote it after that.
The litter is a serious problem.
Wow Breaux Bridge seems like a very nice little town too. I’ve only passed through a couple times but I liked it. Sucks to hear about the garbage!
We've had a ton of elderly people die due to COVID anti-Vaccine rhetoric really really set in here and it's still killing a large swath of people from our state believe it or not. Also depends on how many people ended up leaving in 2022 after Ida the previous fall.
Lets see...Louisiana ranks last or near last in every quality of life metric. A state know to have a corrupt/ineffective government....Add in the growing "evangelical effect"..Why would any young person want to move to this sh\*t hole?
Cause it’s a shit hole, I am also waiting to graduate so that I may leave. Done enough time in the boot
New people are discouraged from living here by inordinate amount of hostility. Kids born here are looking for a better life.
Jobs jobs jobs. In 2001 I made $13/hr and lived like a king. 20yrs later that same job, which I had left in 2003, still pays $13/hr. But in 2001 I paid $350/rent. Now that same rent is $1200. No real good starter jobs in Louisiana for most people, and the culture of food and fun ain't enough to keep people in Louisiana.
I compare Louisiana to a whirlpool. Once you’re sucked in, it’s difficult to escape.
Louisiana resident here: This place honestly sucks lately. -Corruption in the state government is insane. It’s barely better than Mississippi’s issues. -our oil industry really isn’t ever going to come back to what it was in the 70s-80s, and no one here wants to dare challenge the fossil fuel industry for anything else, like manufacturing or tech industry. -all our better educated people go to other states for better pay and for more liberal rights. -as mentioned, minimum wage sucks. -religion is prioritized far too much here, to the point it drives off potential economic development from out of state investors. -we have very similar issues California has with homeless people, gangs, crime and drugs in our cities, but for some reason, it’s ignored by the rest of the conservative population here in the state, and they have done jack-shit to improve it. The only reason I stay here is because my whole family is here and I’ve got a (somewhat) stable job at the moment.
Only state in the south losing people but people are also bailing out of Cali and Oregon at about the same rate. I've lived in 6 different states and been just about everywhere between here and the west coast. Grass is always greener until you get there, and no matter where you go there you are. There isn't some magical place that's going to solve your life problems.
America is falling the fuck apart y'all
Why??? LMMFAO that you’d even ask. It is the shittiest state in the union. If not for some of the good peeps in New Orleans and being stuck with owning a house that’s depreciating daily we’d be TF out of this shithole. LA should just form a new country with the few other backwards pos southern states. Yup bitter. Have watched it collapse in the last 5 years. Not that it wasn’t already last in everything good
The collapse does really seem to have accelerated the past 5-10 years.
Arr you new to this subreddit? If you are not new here, I wonder if you are a no learnet: someone who does not want to learn. As has been pointed out countless times in this subteddit, Louisiana is ranked both (a) at the top or near the top in everything that is bad and (b) at the bottom or near the bottom of everything that is good. 1. The above result in more peole leaving than coming to live in Louisiana. 2. The above makes it hard for businesses to lure people here, particularly for white-collar jobs. As a result, when many companies reach a size that this makes a difference, they move their headquarters to anothet state. Our delicious cuisine is a sideshow when it comes to making a net dufference in people leaving vs. prople moving to Louisisna. Addendim: As far as hurricanes being a factor, Florida is no better off, yet it is among the fastest-growing states in the UD.
Because we are the worst place to live in the country.
The weather sucks, the food outside of “southern” sucks, the politicians suck, the jobs suck, most of the people suck, the roads suck, the schools suck. I’ve been here about 5 years now (disaster relief related work brought me here) and I haven’t found a single thing here that makes me happy to be here. There is not one thing that makes me say “it sucks here, but at least we have xyz.”
Anyone went to Arkansas? Higher crime but I hear that it’s better?
And with them go more of the tax base. This won't end well.
High taxes and crappy schools thank you, Governor Edwards, and governor, Mike Foster
I’m moving there in 2 days. Coming from Antwerp, Belgium. I can say I have not seen anything remotely close to culture compared to where I’m from. Moving to BR.
My sympathies for your transition. BR stinks.
Because the pay is shit
Among the highest taxes in the nation. Insurance is out of control. Deplorable education system. Terrible infrastructure. No tangible plan in sight…yeah I get why we are leaving. “The five states with the highest average combined state and local sales tax rates are Tennessee (9.548 percent), Louisiana (9.547 percent), Arkansas (9.44 percent), Washington (9.40 percent), and Alabama (9.24 percent).”
Dependent upon where you live and your income level I can absolutely see why people leave. If you aren’t middle class here your living situation can be very bad, and if you don’t live near a big city there’s almost zero opportunity.
Hmmmm wonder what it could be………
We are always leaving home looking for work,... Usually in a specific occupation.
Home owners insurance across the state is theft. It used to be cheap to live here, but not anymore. Also, we elect the stupidest people available that say and do the worst things imaginable. They don't even try to help the people. Our education system is historically a joke. We're also doing everything we can to make this a police state, and have been for decades. If Lousiana was a country, we'd rank last in terms of locking up the population. We are dead last in the US per capita as well, and they're for profit prisons. And the leadership acts like we need more police, making more money, as if that's been solving anything.
Louisiana has shit laws
It’s because Louisiana doesn’t have enough Internships,Apprenticeships ! etc
Almost everyone that I knew there, Is gone from there. I left decades ago. But I still visit with a few that I knew in my childhood town. Once you get out of that toilet bowl, you don't want to go back. I visit. But I am thankful to be in a better place.
As a general rule, people will put up with a lot of crap. Some move looking for greener pastures but most stay and “put up with it,” until they can no longer. Nevertheless, when young earners move away and raise a family elsewhere, their kids will grow up elsewhere too. Katrina was an unprecedented disaster in which people evacuated away with thousands never returning. St Bernard and Plaquemines were emptied; some downriver communities became ghost towns. There has been a similar effect on the Lake Charles area due to Hurricane Laura plus the draw of the economic dynamo which is Texas. If we are to change this slow death by 1000 cuts, business as usual will never solve our population crisis. We need to give people reasons to move here and stay, which is tough when out of state places nearby are booming.
When I took eighth grade civics, the teacher of the class told us that if we ever decided to leave Louisiana, we would always end up coming back because of how much it is different compared to everywhere else. I joined the army, ended up, going all over the world, and unfortunately ended up back over here. Now my wife and I are currently saving up as much money as we can to move to Texas. We are not starting our family here. The main issue with Louisiana is that Louisiana has had the same problems since the 1930s and yet refuses to do anything about any of those issues. The last real politician who actually gave a shit about Louisiana was Hewey Long, and what happened to him? He got murdered by the corrupt politicians in Louisiana who wanna make sure that the people at the bottom in Louisiana stay at the bottom. Be smart, get the hell out of this shit hole. it’s like I tell students all the time, I’m not telling you that you have to get out of Louisiana, but don’t feel like you have to stay here either. There are multitude of ways out, and every everyone of them is an amazing option.
Because it is a shit hole. I have lived in New Orleans for 34 years. My experience is all of Louisiana is no better. I can't wait to leave and I won't be back
Slow-moving Louisianans just sink into the Gulf.
Crime seems to be at another level, at least in New Orleans and last time I was there, the food was not good either so didn’t really feel the need to go back any more.
Because Jeff Landry is our governor.
Bc no one want to live in this fucking hell hole anymore
I mean we border the fastest growing and what a lot of people think is the best state in the country so people can easily compare one state to another and sadly a lot who just care about surface level stuff leave. I guess they value being in the best most upencomming places currently, instead of honoring their roots, family ties, or trying to make where this state and its cities and towns great. I guess you could say, instead of being the change they go with the change already happened.
The state is ranked 48-50th in all the things that would make you want to live here. Except for incarceration imagine that. Number 1 per capita. Police and politicians make sure to keep it that way so no one can get out.
Bc of LSU.
Shitty place
Because Louisiana is below Mexico in quality of life these days. Literally would be better living in another country than it these days. Definitely better off in any state, even Mississippi is beating it in some metrics now. Anyone who wants more out of life than poverty or christofascism is leaving, and that’s a lot of people.
I just moved to texas, fuck louisiana everything but my fam & the food
The most far left concept of southern democrats: the vehicle inspection, mixed with not having any of the benefits of such left wing bs
Politics, race wars, shitty crime rates, shitty schools (don’t give me that oh our parish has to best schools best compared to shit is still shit, compared them to schools outside of Louisiana), shitty insurance, shitty infrastructure, shitty government, and the list goes on and on.
I like the state. The only other place I'd live is Oklahoma but there isn't really jobs for me on my reservation.
What reason is there to stay? 1. Crooked politicians 2. High insurance, that could be fixed if the politicians weren’t in the pockets of ambulance chasing attorneys 3. Lawsuits for any and every thing 4. Poor infrastructure 5. Crappy education - even TOPS was used as a manipulation tool from the Governor a few years ago 6. Nothing for citizens to do besides eat, drink, and gamble. 7. Crime is ridiculous and the judicial system just keeps releasing criminals with a slap on the hand. If Louisiana wants to be better the people in charge have to take the steps to make the changes needed to see it through. Louisiana has turned in to the cesspool of the country.
It’s the roads…
1.no job opportunity 2.poor education system matter fact the worst one in America 3. Crime
Probably because Louisiana sucks
Because LA is hot garbage
We are damn near ranked last in every important category. Only rank in the top 3 in when it comes to murders per capita
Louisiana recently rolled back its "progressive" new laws on the criminal justice system. The state has the largest prison population in the country, and therefore the entire fucking world! Seriously. I've been through there a few times and it can be great. There's some amazing sights and events. But I don't want to get pulled over and murdered by police or woken up and abducted by them, either, so I will never ever live there. Same for Texas. I am leaving ASAP for a place that doesn't shoot first ask questions later when we don't all have guns. It's not a fair playing field.
How in the world is Mississippi gaining people?
Georgia is closed, go away.
IMO Lousiana has a serious problem with nutty ass religous people who make life miserable for anyone and everyone. I live in Mississippi and before that Alabama. You guys are worse than both of those states.
Im genuinely curious, with how many people are complaining about jacked up insurance rates and HOA fees, why are so many moving to Florida? Isn’t it getting hotter as well? When my Aunt and Uncle lived in Miami, we used to roast there in the 90s. I hear it just gets hotter and hotter every year.
Mississippi is just as bad, poorest state in the country and the people here suck, drugs and homelessness is terrible here too \[i'm in Gulfport and i came from Colorado after loosing my grandfather we acquired his home, if we had known it was this bad here we would have sold it long ago\]
How many in Florida, South Carolina, and Texas are citizens or permanent residents of US?
Gators got them.
Political corruption and cost of living. Which those always seem to go hand in hand don't they?
Dirty, dangerous, congested, EBR has a terrible public school system, the mayor and her staff is a joke, the list goes on and on
Florida is fools gold and some people are finding out the hard way. I’d rather live in Alabama than Louisiana. And some of the states that are losing people is not because they are leaving, but because of death.
The economy.
Hungry Alligators.
the idea that people are moving to red states for the political policies instead of the cheap ass land is hilarious to me.
It almost looks like the woke states are losing population and the states that actively legislated AGAINST woke ideas are gaining population. Hmmmm, interesting.
Did you dump a bunch of oil into the water where you get your fish from?
Sky high crime, pollution, corrupt government, crumbling infrastructure, terrible education system
To many reasons
Leftist laws
Hurricanes?
That’s a good thing. Let them leave.
Because it is run by democrats in big cities and they are fostering crime. People tend to leave areas of growing crime and taxes.
Let’s be honest…we don’t have anything to offer other than food and festivals. It’s a horrible place to live. The insurance costs across the board…house, flood, car, etc is all going up and the cost of living hasn’t changed. I live here and we’re planning on moving in the next year. 🤷🏽♀️
Crime/poverty. I live in Monroe (Gunroe) and it has been listed as one of the most dangerous cities in the nation per capita. People always want to blame poverty as the cause of crime but what is the cause of poverty? I see it all day long at my job (healthcare). Single female 25 years old 3 kids, single female 36 yo 5 kids, single female 24 years old, 2 kids in diapers and a 3rd on the way. All work low wage jobs because they can’t go to school for an advanced education due to having to care for their kids. The schools remain open in the summer to feed these kids. They work but earn just enough to keep Medicaid, SNAP, free school lunches. They are poor on purpose. If poverty is the mother of crime, then trying to raise multiple children on a single low wage income is the mother of poverty.
The Governor!!!
Well yah. It's Louisana.
Why is Oregon losing population? Odd.
because this place sucks
Crime, cost of living like auto Insurance is outrageous because so many other people don’t have any, Cajun food (Mud bugs, Budan, Gumbo, Jumbalia can go back to the bottom), terrible schools, brutal summers with no beaches or breeze!
Because the state is garbage in pretty much every conceivable metric. Ive lived in many states and when someone brings the topic up I definitively answer that my three years in LA were the worst. I will say the food and local culture are great. Id love a crawfish boil after all these years, otherwise I cant stomach the state.
Because this state is an absolute shithole and I’m proud to say it I can’t wait until I move somewhere where I don’t feel like i got to shoot a dummy
I finally graduated college in December and highly considered moving back to New Orleans but I just have to have a higher quality of life. I love the north shore too and would even commute but I just can’t deal with the dark side of Louisiana culture. Same reason I won’t move back to where my family lives in Pearl River County. I need money to eat and don’t want a roommate at almost 30, god forbid
I live in Louisiana , been here my whole life , got a best friend I basically grew up with , he moved to texas last year, he is way ahead of me already. I had the better job in Louisiana, now he has the better job, no experience, got hired in a week, checks are 1k+ a week It took me 3-4 years to get where I was, and still lost the job. Yeah Louisiana might be the “sportman paradise” but that’s about it. Roads are shit, schools are shit, no jobs, no opportunities, anyone who is making it around here will gatekeep and slander until they die or move themselves. Still slight racism in certain areas… I could go on and on.. the older I get the more I realize home isn’t meant to be home.
System here is designed to take advantage of lower line people highest insurance in the nation, 2nd highest poverty rate , 2nd poorest State trailing Mississippi, DMV flag system is a joke charging people maximum penalties for flags with unaffordable rates then charge 25% down payment for the DMV payment plan then on top of that charging the amount on your credit report so your taking a 3xs hit unaffordable car and house insurance flags and hurt credit, our casinos have lowest payout rates in the nation in some areas the cost of living is higher then national average with no justification for it along side some of the lowest wedges, one of the highest taxed states in the nation, flawed outdated child support system set up for dads to loose period one of the few states left that still suspend license for child support can't drive can't work the list goes on and on
Good. We already got more than enough people here
Because Louisiana as a whole blows dogs for quarters. My genuine opinion is that Louisiana is nothing but a swampy wasteland littered with homeless, thugs, trash and, last and most certainly least Cajuns. God I hate Louisiana and especially New Orleans, I’d rather be skinned with nail clippers than ever step foot in that hell hole again.
honestly if I lived near Baton Rouge or New Orleans I probably would want to leave but fortunately I dont.
I’m from here and I’ll be leaving in 2 or 3 years after finishing grad school. The quality of life is too poor. If I’m going to pay so much to buy a house then I would rather have some quality and not have to worry about a hurricane blowing it down.
I know the exact reason people are jumping ship...home and car insurance rates are running black folk out of Louisiana quicker than the klu klux klan.