The state of NOLA’s economy, 20 years later

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Today marks 20 years since Hurricane Katrina, one of the most devastating natural disasters in US history, first made landfall in New Orleans and continued on to batter the surrounding Gulf Coast. The storm killed over 1,400 people and displaced roughly 1 million residents. Hurricane Katrina’s damage to New Orleans was so massive that lawmakers at the time debated whether the city, in a precarious environmental spot to start with, was worth rebuilding. In the end, the federal government spent over $125 billion on recovery efforts to rebuild and reinforce flood infrastructure, making Katrina the country’s costliest storm. Plenty of setbacks In the present day, New Orleans is one of the weakest employment markets in the country. Its three main industries—tourism, shipping, and oil and gas production—have been hemorrhaging jobs. More residents are leaving the city for opportunities elsewhere. The population of New Orleans has declined by 23% since 2000, the fastest loss of residents of any US city of its size. And it gets worse for its Black residents: New Orleans is now the most income-unequal major city in the US. Despite the median household income in the city moving up just 12% from 2000 to 2020, Black families experienced no income growth during that period. Even though some spots primed for tourism have received facelifts, a number of areas for residents, predominantly neighborhoods that used to be home to large middle-class Black populations, were completely wiped out and never rebuilt. In 2005, the response to Hurricane Katrina was so botched that it led to the head of FEMA resigning and local and federal politicians receiving massive criticism. Some experts argue that the city’s and state’s uses of federal funds have been just as mismanaged, with little thought going into how to actually future-proof power grids and flood systems. Looking ahead…storms, supercharged by climate change, are only getting worse, and the $14 billion revamped levee system in the city is not only sinking faster than engineers predicted, but at risk of massive federal and state budget cuts.—MM