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World video travel guide
News • United States • 2010-09-06
FACTS FOR FEATURES ON THE
FIFTH ANNIVERSARY OF HURRICANE KATRINA
Five years after Hurricane Katrina, what does the very latest data say about how the city and region are doing?
New Orleans is recovering.
According to the most recent estimates from July 2009, New Orleans’ population is 354,850 or 78 percent of its pre-Katrina level of 455,188 (July 2005). The metro area with 1,189,981 residents has recovered 91 percent of pre-Katrina population level of 1,313,460.
As of this spring, the city has 61 percent of its pre-Katrina public and private school enrollment, while the metro area has reached 79 percent.
The eight colleges and universities in the city have 84 percent of their pre-Katrina total enrollment.
The July 2010 labor force of the region reached 87 percent of its level five years earlier.
New Orleans is rebounding and, in some ways, doing so better than before.
New Orleans experienced relatively mild job losses during this recession. From July 2008 to July 2010, the New Orleans metro lost 0.8 percent of all jobs while the nation lost 5.0 percent of all jobs.
Average wages in the metro have increased 14 percent from 2004 to 2008.
Entrepreneurship has spiked in the metro area post-Katrina with 450 of every 100,000 adults starting a business compared to 320 of every 100,000 adults nationally.
In the most recent school year 59 percent of New Orleans’ public school students attended schools that pass state standards, up from 28 percent in the 2003-2004 school year.
Blight is rapidly declining in New Orleans, down from 98,402 unoccupied residential and commercial addresses in March 2007 to 64,135 in June 2010. In St. Bernard Parish blight has fallen from 19,525 unoccupied residential and commercial addresses in 2007 to 13,927 today.
But it's important to remember that New Orleans has sustained three shocks since 2005.
Although the local job loss rate was less than national job losses, the Recession stalled greater New Orleans’ post-Katrina jobs recovery such that by July 2010, the metro had 89,000 (or 15 percent) fewer jobs than 5 years earlier.
Single family home sales in the region fell from 6,832 in the first seven months of 2007 to 4,473 in the same months of 2010, reflecting the meltdown in the national housing market. Louisiana mortgages in foreclosure have risen steadily from 2.1 percent in March 2008 to 3.4 percent in March 2010.
Unemployment in the metro has risen from 4.5 percent in July 2008 to 7.5 percent in July 2010.
New Orleans sales tax collections stopped growing in 2008 and January through July tax collections for 2010 are eight percent lower than the same months in 2005.
The oil spill and moratorium are undercutting key industries that drive the New Orleans regional economy such that there are 2.5 percent fewer natural resources and mining jobs in July 2010 as compared to one year earlier, even as such jobs increased nationally by 6.7 percent.
Airport passengers during the first five months of 2010 are three percent higher compared to one year ago, but five percent lower than in 2008. Passenger figures should be monitored in coming months in order to evaluate the impact of the oil spill on tourism.
Key economic, social and environmental trends in the New Orleans metro area remain troubling.
Post-Katrina housing is unaffordable with 58 percent of renters in the city paying more than 35 percent of their pre-tax income on rent and utilities in 2008, up from 43 percent of renters in 2004.
In 2008, the rate of violent crimes per 100,000 residents was 1,019 in New Orleans up from 948 in 2004 and more than twice the 2008 national rate of 455.
Twenty-three percent of the wetlands that protect the New Orleans metro area have been lost since 1956.
Road Home and FEMA dollars are still flowing to localities.
As of June 2010, FEMA has obligated $5.9 billion for debris removal and infrastructure repairs for the New Orleans area, with $3.5 billion paid to localities and $2.4 billion still forthcoming.
As of August 5, 2010, the state has disbursed $8.59 billion in Road Home grants to 127,734 pre-Katrina homeowners. Some 3,000 applications are still pending.
As of June 2010, 860 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.
In New Orleans, the share of Latinos grew steadily from 3.1 percent in 2000 to 4.7 percent in 2009, and from 4.4 percent to 6.6 percent across the metro area.
Although the share of African Americans in the city is now 61.3 percent (down from 66.7 percent in 2000), the share has grown each year post-Katrina from its lowest point, 57.8 percent in 2006, and continues to trend back to its pre-Katrina baseline.
The percent of the city’s households that include children has fallen dramatically from 30 in 2000 to 20 in 2008, and across the metro the percent of households with children has fallen from 33 to 27 percent.
The percent of New Orleans households without a vehicle fell from 27 in 2000 to 20 in 2008, and across the metro it fell from 15 to 9 percent of all households by 2008.
