New Orleans Rising Poverty .....

 
The Greater New Orleans Community Data Center examined 2012 demographic data recently released by the U.S. Census Bureau and identified important trends in metro area parishes.  The data indicates that Orleans Parish's poverty rate in 2007 was 21%, one percentage point above the national average.  
However, by 2012 the city's poverty rate had jumped to 29%.  How could this happen in the midst of all the rebuilding, entrepreneurial activity and a supposed unemployment rate of 4.5%?

Those of us involved in finding new economic pathways that are more inclusive believe that our indigenous entrepreneurs are being shut out as local economic and workforce development entities work instead toward attracting entrepreneurs and businesses from outside the region, rather than growing from within. Because tourism and hospitality remain as New Orleans largest employer we continue to have a workforce that is paid abysmal wages that are made worse with the frequent occurrence of wage theft within the sector.  Local economic development entities routinely put forth how awful the city was prior to Katrina citing its poor educational system, its crime, etc., all the while ignoring the significant production activities and positive contributions of long time residents that has made the city so attractive to this newly arrived entrepreneur class.  This is why there is a growing call for the worker-owned business model to be made central to both our economic development and workforce development strategies in the New Orleans metro region. 

Our official economic and workforce development entities also continue to ignore the effects this influx of new entrepreneurs has had on those who resided here before Katrina, such as the precipitous rise in rental costs, leaving 36% of the city's renters now spending more than 50% of their pre-tax income on housing costs. The national rate for 'severely cost–burdened renters' is 24%. However, most of the newly arrived continue to cite the music, art and culture here as one of the primary reason for relocating to New Orleans to start their businesses.

Our economic and workforce development system is a mess nationwide, but much more so here in Louisiana and New Orleans especially.  Ted Howard, Executive Director of the Democracy Collaborative at the University of Maryland estimates the U.S. spends $37B on workforce development and, the more astounding figure of $80B on swaps - the public money, in the form of various subsidies spent enticing companies to relocate from one region to another.  Businesses, i. e., corporate welfare.  Businesses are making out like bandits while tax payers and workers are raked over the coals. In addition the workforce development system is very employer centric, leaving workers in a situation where they are routinely channeled into low-wage jobs at a high public cost. For more on the high public costs of such economic development strategies see:  "Fast Food, Poverty Wages: The Public Cost of Low-Wage Jobs in the Fast-Food Industry," an October 2013 report sponsored by the University of California, Berkeley's Center for Labor Research and Education and the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Department of Urban & Regional Planning, with funding provided by Fast Food Forward.
 
 In Louisiana, 73% of fast food workers receive some form of public assistance - the highest rate in the nation.  In addition, 37% of these workers have some college education. Many fast food workers are also expected to work several hours per day off-the-clock, stocking and cleaning, at the beginning and end of their shifts.  None are allowed to work a 40 week, as that would mean their employers would have to provide health insurance for them.  That has become an increasingly common situation in most industry sectors, even for those with college degrees, indicating how important the Affordable Care Act is to many Americans.

Fast food workers, restaurant workers, hotel workers and retail workers and increasing more and more workers in other sectors are receiving poverty level wages with no benefits, living pay check to paycheck and not being able to make ends meet, while being characterized as lazy. These workers are our hardest working Americans, working far harder and longer than the shareholders of the companies they work for...

Is there any hope within this abusive system?  Not really.  The hope lies within our own communities, with us and with our own initiative to change the system.  We work within this system and know best the changes that need to happen so that our families and neighborhoods may live decent lives.  We can build our own economic system from the ground up ~ one that is inclusive and that serves ourselves and our families and our communities rather than some small group of far-flung corporate shareholders. We can build our own democratic workplaces, we can HIRE OURSELVES, through building worker-owned businesses in our communities.  That is what we are working toward in forming the New Orleans Cooperative Development Project.  Please join us as we build this movement here and around the nation.  We can join together and collaborate and cooperate on a more equitable way forward ~ and create work and jobs ~ jobs with ownership, democratic workplaces with the kind of flexible workplaces parents, families and all workers need.  We can bring back quality and craftsmanship to the products and services we produce and have pride in our work once again.