NEW ORLEANS – Today, The Data Center released the sixth in a series of reports on changes post-Katrina called The New Orleans Index at Ten Collection.
“Persistent Low Wages in New Orleans’ Economic Resurgence: Policies for Improving Earnings for the Working Poor” was contributed by Marla Nelson of the University of New Orleans, Laura Wolf-Powers of the City University of New York, and Jessica Fisch of the Georgia Institute of Technology.
The report found that despite New Orleans’ economic resurgence post-Katrina, many workers remain stuck in low-wage jobs. Nearly 60 percent of jobs in the region fail to pay high enough wages to cover the post-Katrina cost of living. Among the region’s low-earners, almost half commuted long distances to jobs outside of their home parish for work. In 40 census tracts in Orleans Parish, 80 percent or more of working residents are employed in low-wage jobs.
The report recommends to alleviate working poverty, workforce development initiatives should be coupled with stronger quality standards in the state’s economic development subsidy programs, policies and regulations to raise wages and ensure that work is legally remunerated and support for safety net programs that boost incomes for the working poor.
The report suggests that local officials and policy makers can target interventions to neighborhoods with high concentrations of low-earning, unemployed and discouraged workers.
The task of improving outcomes for low-earning workers is complex and will require significant investment, the report finds, but if leaders make these investments, job openings in high-growth occupations can be filled by local residents, and more New Orleanians will be able to participate in the region’s post-Katrina economic recovery, alleviating entrenched problems of poverty and economic inequality.
Read the report here.
