Using Census date, USA Today ranked Lafayette’s middle income group, those making $20,700 to $99,900 a year, 6th in the nation. Lafayette’s middle class grew 4.1 percent from 2006 to 2010, the analysis found.
The report, “Middle class’ share of the nation’s income is shrinking,” notes that areas where the middle class’ share of income dropped outnumbered those where it grew by more than 2-to-1:
“The lower share of income is a way of saying income inequality is growing in the middle,” says Paul Taylor, executive vice president of the Pew Research Center, who has studied the shift. “The vast middle has less of the pie than it had before.”
Lafayette Economic Development Authority chief Gregg Gothreaux says there are three primary reasons the middle class is growing here: housing values are holding, wages are on the rise (our wage growth rate is among the top 10 in the country), and unemployment is at about 5 percent. He says specialization, both outside and within the oil and gas industry, is helping the middle class. “The middle class in our area is fairly specialized — some form of advanced training. The perfect example is tech jobs in the area,” he says. “We’ve been in the top 10 in high-tech GDP growth in the last two years.”
Gothreaux also points to Lafayette ranking sixth in the nation in overall GDP growth and its 16 percent population increase reflected in the last census. “If GDP is increasing significantly, that means there are many more people coming into the community,” he says. “You gotta believe a good number of the in-migration is in the middle class.”
Another recent report from the Congressional Budget Office found that the nation’s top income earners saw their incomes increase 275 percent from 1979 to 2007. The top 1 percent made $165,000 or more in 1979, and that figure rose to $347,000 in 2007.
Here’s how Lafayette stacked up among the Top 10 in the USA Today analysis:
Hilton Head Island-Beaufort, S.C., 6.4
Sebastian, Fla., 6.2
Dover, Del., 4.5
Mount Vernon, Wash., 4.4
Wichita Falls, Texas, 4.4
Lafayette, La., 4.1
Dothan, Ala., 3.8
Hilo, Hawaii, 3.8
Albany-Lebanon, Ore., 3.6
Key West, Fla., 3.6
Read USA Today’s full report here.
MAY 17 Here's a column from James Gill, this time in the Advocate. Gill, who has jumped ship from the Picayune, writes about the absurdity of dueling polls in this post. The numbers are so wildly different, it is obvious that both sides are "cooking the books," he writes. In particular, he looks at Sen. Mary Landrieu, and how her recent actions in DC have been received by those polled. Gill's acerbic, amusing prose is a welcome addition to a paper so conservative as to be occasionally lacking in personality.
MAY 17 Blogger Tom Aswell continues delivering bombshells about the state education department and Gov. Jindal's education "reform" efforts. In this post, he reports that students in the Shreveport area have been signed up for a charter school without their knowledge or consent. Most interesting to Aswell is how this Texas-based charter (with ties to GOP types) got the personal student information it has, if the students didn't give it.
MAY 17 This post by JR Ball in the Baton Rouge Business Report is an interesting tongue-in-cheek look at recent Baton Rouge economic development efforts. Among the items he examines is the idea that gaining a Costco makes BR a "world-class city." (Really? All you need is a different brand of Sam's? MK!) This effort, and other recent ones, are all built on the taxpayer's back, with tax zones, tax incentives and tax rebates, Ball writes.
MAY 17 Blogger CB Forgotston is critical of the legislature's reliance on a revenue-estimating committee's decision to include projected tax amnesty income in this year's forecast. That's a problem, CB posts, because the deadline for these people to pay their taxes is June 30, 2014. So when do you think these people who haven't paid taxes in years are going to pay their taxes? Surely not before June 30, and that means the money won't be there for this year's budget, he argues.
MAY 17 Here's an interesting blog out of California by a Hollywood writer, attorney and academic named Brian Alan Lane. He blogs about higher ed, and was a whistle-blower in a scandal over false credentials. In this post, he takes aim at LSU's new top dog, King Alexander. It's convoluted and a little confusing, but it sure makes Alexander a lot more interesting than he was yesterday.
MAY 17 Blogger Robert Mann writes about the LSU Board's refusal to allow Dr. Fred Cerise to testify before the legislature about Gov. Jindal's plan to close down all the state's charity hospitals and dump the poor on the private system. It's hard to imagine anyone more qualified than Cerise to testify about that, so why would anyone try to prevent him doing so? Mann thinks it is because the powers that be aren't interested in hearing any truth about the plan.
MAY 17 This post on the Louisiana Sinkhole Bugle, a blog that notes developments in the Bayou Corne and Jefferson Island salt domes, talks about a proposed expansion of the salt dome storage under Lake Peigneur in Iberia Parish. Residents are working against it for several reasons, including two biggies: the sinkhole disaster in Bayou Corne and the continuing, unexplained bubbling on the surface of the Lake.
MAY 17 NOLA police arrested more people Thursday accused of either being involved in the Mother's Day shooting or hiding the suspect afterward, this Gambit story reports. The NOLA police chief said he suspects the whole thing was gang-related and throws out a challenge to the gangs: he's got informants now, he says, and he knows a lot more than the gangs want him to know. The people who live in the neighborhoods terrorized by gangs are ready to talk, he says.
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