Let’s resolve to lean on elected officials to increase the quality of life for the Black community
6th January 2025 · 0 Comments
New Orleanians will choose a new mayor and new councilpersons to lead our city this year.
Before Black New Orleanians step into a voting booth, this year, we should demand that elected officials resolve to improve our quality of life.
In 2023, New Orleans adopted a budget of about $1.4 billion. The top funding purposes for local taxes are public safety, education and promoting tourism, conventions and professional sports.
Tourism and professional sports bring a lot of money to New Orleans. In 2024, Mardi Gras generated $891 billion; the Taylor Swift Concert brought in $200 million for local businesses, and the 2024 Essence Festival of Culture (EFOC) in New Orleans had an estimated economic impact of $300 million. The festival attracted an estimated 500,000 people to the city, significantly impacting local businesses.
According to research from MMGY Global, Louisiana welcomed 43 million domestic and international visitors in 2023, an increase of 420,000 over 2022. These visitors spent $18.1 billion in 2023, an increase of 5.4 percent from 2022. International visitation showed the most significant gain, increasing 16.9 percent in 2023 with spending reaching $1.7 billion.
Additionally, in 2023, visitor spending generated $1.9 billion in state and local taxes, the lieutenant governor’s Department of Culture, Recreation, & Tourism reported.
That’s a lot of money. It’s undisputed that tourism is New Orleans’ main industry, followed by the biomedical industry. So, why are so many Black residents living below the poverty line?
According to the World Population Review, 30.47 percent of Black people live below the poverty line in New Orleans compared to 10.64 percent of white people, and 18.69 percent of Hispanic people. A U.S. Census Bureau report puts the city’s poverty rate at 23 percent.
Black people comprise 57 percent of New Orleans’ population. So, why doesn’t the city’s majority share in the wealth?
What can city officials do to increase the quality of life for the majority, who provide much of the culture visitors enjoy, and contribute greatly to the tourism workforce?
Our music, cuisine, and cultural traditions attract tourists to the city. Also, most of the city’s professional athletes are Black and entertain with their games, generating revenue and attracting visitors.
Sadly, most New Orleans jobs are in the low-paying service industry. Blacks in that industry and those who work in professional corporations are not in top positions.
Black unemployment is a nationwide problem, but it’s keenly felt here in New Orleans, too.
A 2024 CNBC Economic Report documented unemployment among Black men and the inequality inherent in the workforce.
Elise Gould, a senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute, reported that the average white worker age 16 or older had a median weekly pay nearly 20 percent higher than their Black counterparts, according to federal data as of the last quarter of 2023. That disparity grew to almost 25 percent when looking at male workers alone.
Gould believes a better economy can help historically disadvantaged groups more because they are often left out.
In New Orleans, many Black men are also missing from the nation’s economy but also missing from homeownership, schools, colleges, jobs and businesses. And that has a lot to do with discrimination and racism.
Still, candidates expect them and Black women to run to the voting booths to put them in office.
People blame low Black voter turnout as the reason for us not having adequate representation, especially in state government.
But why should we vote when elected officials, conservative and liberal, show such little regard for what Black people need. Maybe we would vote in record numbers if we were hired in well-paying jobs, allowed access to first-time homebuyers’ soft second mortgages, got investments in our small businesses and support of budding entrepreneurship.
Maybe we would vote if job training in the trades, biomedical and computer industries were offered to high schoolers who could secure decent-paying jobs after graduation. This would lead to property and business ownership.
In progressive cities and states, local and state government officials and corporations collaborate to create economic opportunity districts. In most places, state and federal officials will create economic districts and partner with the mayor’s economic development office. The city doesn’t necessarily have the power to create economic districts alone.
It seems that this can only happen if it’s what the state wants. We need only look at the Downtown Development District, Riverfront District and Biomedical District here in New Orleans.
The state is more interested in taking over the city of New Orleans than in solving poverty. Even so, our city officials should resolve to lift its constituents out of poverty. City officials should resolve to encourage private industry to contract with Black-owned businesses and create a program to foster small business development.
Our officials should resolve to hold the public school system accountable for educating our children for their economic futures, whether by offering trades in high school or lobbying for more affordable city colleges. Delgado and Sidney Collier can’t handle all the people who want to seek higher education at the city college level.
The public school system gets a dedicated tax millage annually to supplement state funds. The city should have a say in how our children are educated at our expense.
City officials should resolve to go back to the days when the city had its own workforce to keep the city clean, repair streets, and build infrastructure. Employing the unemployed would decrease the poverty rate.
We don’t have a unity of purpose here. State officials, city council members and mayors are not on the same page regarding an economic agenda.
If they do nothing else, city officials should resolve to unify for a common purpose: increasing the quality of life for Black New Orleanians.
If not, it is up to us, the people, to unify, as in the old days when the community, the church and civil rights activists came together to demand our fair share of the wealth. Back then, this coalition of concerned citizens would not only organize protest marches but also arrange economic boycotts and demand that anyone who wanted to run for public office adopt the people’s agenda.
This article originally published in the January 6, 2025 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
