All but six of the 56 counties or parishes along the Gulf Coast in Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas endured higher economic stress in June, according to the AP’s stress index for June.
But since the BP oil spill, the economies in the region haven’t all fared the same. The index found that all of coastal Louisiana’s parishes have endured higher economic stress since April, as have all but one of the 17 coastal counties in Texas and two of the three in Mississippi. Higher unemployment is the main reason. By contrast, Alabama’s two coastal counties have seen declines in economic hardship, along with more than half the 23 Florida counties on the Gulf Coast. The improvements are mainly attributable to lower unemployment and fewer foreclosures.
The AP’s index, which found an increase in nationwide stress levels in June — after easing for four months, calculates a score for each county and state from 1 to 100 based on unemployment, foreclosure and bankruptcy rates. A higher score indicates more economic stress (a county is considered stressed when its score exceeds 11).
About 42 percent of the nation’s counties were found to be stressed. That was slightly higher than May’s reading of 40 percent. Lafayette Parish’s stress index rose .97 points from May, to 7.57, and Louisiana’s was 9.82, up 1.19 points. The least-stressed state was again North Dakota (4.83) and next came South Dakota (5.02), Nebraska (6.22), Vermont (6.5) and Wyoming (7.33). Nevada, with a score of 21.93, again led the nation as it has for more than a year, followed by Michigan (16.52), California (16.32), Florida (15.6) and Arizona (15.13). View an interactive map of states and counties here.
Read the full AP story here.
MAY 21 Gambit columnist Clancy DuBos writes about the Mother's Day shooting, and how the stages of shock and blame and healing mirror those traveled by the same city following Hurricane Katrina. The city will recover, just as it did following the storm, by reaching out to help the people injured most seriously by the event, DuBos writes. It's how we heal, he says.
MAY 21 Here's a post on the Advocate (but buried on a subpage, not on the front) that reports something Louisiana Voice reported some time ago: a top DOE official lives in Los Angeles and "commutes" to Baton Rouge. The positioning of the story caused a stir on Facebook Monday, with several posters asking if the Advocate was covering someone's hiney. Sentell's stories on DOE are notoriously soft, and this one is no different: don't expect any hard questions in here.
MAY 21 Here's another post from blogger Tom Aswell about the "course choice" program. He's already reported on kids being signed up without their consent or knowledge, and has more here: For example, he tells of a six-year-old who was signed up for high school Latin. He also digs a little deeper into the sister companies of the main one operating in Louisiana; all of them seem to have complaints against them. Stinky.
MAY 21 Given the 80 percent cut in higher ed funding since he's been in office, it's clear Gov. Jindal would rather give tax cuts to out of state companies than have a functioning system, blogger Dayne Sherman argues in this post. The cuts have been such a disaster, Sherman says, that it will take 30 years to fix what's been broken. He says he believes the aim is to shut down most of the schools before Jindal leaves in 2016.
MAY 21 Blogger CB Forgotston says there are too many elections in Louisiana, and they're costing us too much money. The proof is in the pudding: turnout for most of these nonsensical pollings gets worse and worse, CB opines, even as millions of dollars that could be spent on health care or higher ed go down the tubes. The legislature must take action to stem the tide of pointless elections, he says.
MAY 21 Here's an interesting investigative piece by WVUE on the retirement benefits of some Jefferson Parish public employees. According to the story, the taxpayers are paying 100 percent of the retirement contributions of employees who started work prior to a certain date in April 1986 -- and have done for more than 30 years. It costs the parish millions annually, and might not be legal, the story reports.
MAY 21 This post on Bayou Buzz provides insight from Louisiana's intrepid pollster, Bernie Pinsonat, on the winners and losers from this year's legislative session. But to hear Bernie tell it, there's almost nuttin but losers: Jindal, the Republican party, the Fiscal Hawks all get big goose eggs in his win column.
MAY 20 This post on The Lens takes a look at a huge (either $500K or $250K) bill that one NOLA charter now has for school lunches. The RSD says the charter group didn't fill out the proper paperwork for federal reimbursement, but the story details how the RSD didn't ensure the people running the charter had the proper training, despite requests from hapless charter employees trying to fill out forms. Either way, somebody's asleep at the wheel.
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