Your organization reported last week that Louisiana’s population in 2024 grew for the first time since 2017, mainly thanks to fewer people moving away. What do you think is driving this trend?
Better Louisiana CEO Adam Knapp: The economy would be the obvious thing to look at between health care and construction, with construction being the biggest swing factor. There has been a lot of activity in just about every metro market. The age data [which indicates the two largest age segments moving in were kids under 18 and adults age 25-34] shows that it might be young families that are driving the in-migration data.
Is it fair to assume that affordability is a key factor?
You’re generally seeing an out-migration from high-cost states in America, and we’re receiving a number of those, being an affordable state with a lot of expatriates who have moved on and now might be returning. That’s hard to put an exact number to, but affordability might be driving that. We all know that our costs in Louisiana do give us some competitive advantage.
You report that the proportion of in-migration coming from other nations grew steadily from 2017 through 2024 and makes up about 25% of the people moving in. What do you make of that trend?
Domestic migration jumps up and down, but the [international] trend line has been a pretty steady gain. That will be interesting to see if that held in 2025, because that’s when federal policy really changed again. But it didn’t look like it was affected by the first Trump administration.
—They said it: “He believes that sometimes you have to kill a few chickens to scare the monkeys.” –U.S. Sen. John Kennedy on President Donald Trump’s approach to the war in Iran, on CBS News
Jeremy Alford publishes LaPolitics Weekly, a newsletter on Louisiana politics, at LaPolitics.com. Follow him on Twitter, or Facebook. He can be reached at JJA@LaPolitics.com.
