News Release: Facts for Features
Hurricane Katrina Recovery
Elaine Ortiz,
Senior Research Associate,
Greater New Orleans Community Data Center
For quickest response, direct media questions to "Media" at www.gnocdc.org
ShareNEW ORLEANS — August 28‚ 2011 — Six years after Hurricane Katrina, three years after the onset of the Great Recession, and one year after the oil spill, what does the very latest data say about how the city and region are doing?
New Orleans is a smaller city but is still recovering population.
- The 2010 Census counted New Orleans’ population at 343,829, or 71 percent of its 2000 population of 484,674. The metro area, with 1,167,764 residents, has 89 percent of its 2000 population of 1,316,510.
- As of spring 2011, the city has 63 percent of its pre–Katrina (2004–05) public and private school enrollment, up from 47 percent in spring 2007 and 61 percent in spring 2010. The metro area has reached 80 percent of its pre–Katrina school enrollment, up from 73 percent in 2007 and 79 percent in 2010.
- As of fall 2010, the eight colleges and universities in the city have 88 percent of their pre–Katrina (2004–05) total enrollment, an increase from 73 percent in fall 2007 and 84 percent in fall 2009.
New Orleans is rebounding and, in some ways, performing better than before.
- New Orleans experienced relatively mild job losses during this recession. From June 2008 to June 2011, the New Orleans metro lost 0.1 percent of all jobs while the nation lost 4.5 percent of all jobs.
- Average wages in the metro have increased 15 percent from 2004 to 2009.
- Entrepreneurship has spiked in the metro area post–Katrina with 427 of every 100,000 adults starting a business during 2008–10 compared to 333 of every 100,000 adults nationally.
- During the 2010–11 school year, 68 percent of New Orleans’ public school students attended schools that pass state standards, up from 28 percent in the 2003–04 school year, 44 percent in the 2008–09 school year, and 59 percent in the 2009–10 school year.
- City of New Orleans sales tax collections for the first six months of 2011 are at $78.5 million — higher than any other six–month period post–Katrina, and only 2 percent lower than the same months in 2005.
- Blight is rapidly declining in New Orleans, down from 98,402 unoccupied residential and commercial addresses in March 2007 to 59,535 in September 2010. In St. Bernard Parish, blight has fallen from 19,525 unoccupied residential and commercial addresses in 2007 to 13,696 in 2010.
But it’s important to remember that New Orleans has sustained three shocks since 2005.
- Although the local job loss rate was lower than the national rate, the recession stalled greater New Orleans’ post–Katrina jobs recovery such that by June 2011, the metro had 89,600 (or 15 percent) fewer jobs than six years earlier.
- Single family home sales in the region fell from 6,832 in the first seven months of 2007 to 4,624 in the same months of 2011, reflecting the meltdown in the national housing market. Louisiana mortgages in foreclosure have risen steadily from 2.1 percent in December 2008 to 3.7 percent in December 2010.
- Unemployment in the metro has risen from 4.7 percent in June 2008 to 8.0 percent in June 2011.
- The oil spill and moratorium undercut key industries that drive the New Orleans regional economy such that there are 9.6 percent fewer natural resources and mining jobs in June 2011 as compared to two years earlier, even as such jobs increased nationally by 15.2 percent.
Key economic, social, and environmental trends in the New Orleans metro area remain troubling.
- The New Orleans regional economy is largely reliant on legacy industries in decline. The three largest economic driver industries – tourism, oil and gas, and shipping and logistics — shed tens of thousands of jobs between 1980 and 2010.
- Post–Katrina housing is unaffordable with 55 percent of renters in the city paying more than 35 percent of their pre–tax income on rent and utilities in 2009, up from 43 percent of renters in 2004.
- In 2009, the rate of violent crimes per 100,000 residents was 777 in New Orleans, 80 percent higher than the 2009 national rate of 429.
- Since 1932, 29 percent of the wetlands that protect the New Orleans metro area have been lost.
Road Home and FEMA dollars are still flowing to localities.
- As of April 2011, FEMA has obligated $9.1 billion for debris removal and infrastructure repairs for the New Orleans area, with $4.8 billion paid to localities and $4.3 billion still forthcoming.
- As of July 28, 2011, the state has disbursed $8.83 billion in Road Home grants to 128,656 pre–Katrina homeowners. About 1,000 applications are still pending.
- As of April 2011, 344 families in Louisiana are living in FEMA trailers, down from more than 70,000 in August of 2006.
The city and region have experienced demographic shifts post–Katrina.
- The New Orleans metro area is more diverse than in 2000 with a gain of 33,500 Hispanics, and 3,000 additional Asian residents. The Latino population in the metro spiked 57 percent between 2000 and 2010 — a rate greater than the nation's 43 percent growth.
- In the city, the 2010 Census counted 118,526 fewer African Americans compared to 2000, but also 24,101 fewer whites and 3,225 more Hispanics. Nonetheless, African Americans still represent the majority of the city's population at 60 percent, down from 67 percent in 2000.
- The percent of the city’s households that include children has fallen from 29 in 2000 to 23 percent in 2010, and across the metro the percent of households with children has fallen from 33 in 2000 to 28 percent in 2010.
- The percent of New Orleans households without a vehicle fell from 27 in 2000 to 18 percent in 2009, and across the metro it fell from 15 to 10 percent of all households in 2009.
Be sure to cite the Greater New Orleans Community Data Center: your source for the most up–to–date, reliable data.
For further analysis and recommendations from GNOCDC, see The New Orleans Index at Six at www.gnocdc.org
Sources: U.S. Census Bureau, Decennial Census; Louisiana Department of Education; Delgado Community College, Dillard University, Loyola University, Our Lady of Holy Cross College, Southern University of New Orleans, Tulane University, University of New Orleans, Xavier University, and Louisiana Board of Regents; U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics; U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis; Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta analysis of Kauffman Index of Entrepreneurial Activity; City of New Orleans Finance Department; HUD Aggregated USPS Administrative Data on Address Vacancies; New Orleans Metropolitan Association of Realtors; Mortgage Bankers Association, National Delinquency Survey; Moody’s Analytics (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics: CES, QCEW); U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey; Federal Bureau of Investigation; U.S. Geological Survey; FEMA; and The Road Home Program.
About the Greater New Orleans Community Data Center
The Greater New Orleans Community Data Center gathers analyzes and disseminates data to help nonprofit and civic leaders work smarter and more strategically. Operating since 1997 the GNOCDC is New Orleans’ sustainable data source — before Katrina and in the years to come.
