Employment Equity: Louisiana’s Path to Inclusive Prosperity

Overview

While Louisiana’s economy has improved in recent years, people of color are still disproportionately represented among the state’s economically insecure. Men of color face particular barriers to employment due to discrimination and gaps in work-based skills. If full employment was achieved across all gender and racial groups, Louisiana's economy could be $3.5 billion stronger each year. Investing in men of color and critical education and training systems for Louisiana’s workforce will shift the state toward a course for greater prosperity for all. This brief is the fifth and final in a series about employment equity in the South (following analyses produced for Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, and North Carolina) based on data analysis and modeling of a “full-employment economy” (defined as when everyone who wants a job can find one), which was conducted by the Program for Environmental and Regional Equity (PERE) at the University of Southern California as well as policy research and focus groups conducted by PolicyLink and the Louisiana Power Coalition for Equity and Justice, with support from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. Download the report, detailed methodology, and fact sheet.