Business Should Flee Louisiana As Soon As Possible

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By Douglas A. McIntyre Published
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Business Should Flee Louisiana As Soon As Possible

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Louisiana has been one of the worst states to live in the US for decades. The state has a low median income, poor healthcare, high crime, and poor infrastructure. Today, there is a new reason, particularly for business. CNBC named it the worst state to do business in (aside from Alaska, where no one lives).

Louisiana does poorly across almost every metric used by CNBC. It is at the bottom based on the quality of the workforce, infrastructure, economy, “life, health, and inclusion,” and technology & innovation.

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To make matters worse, Louisiana also makes CNBC’s “America’s worst places to live.” Health statistics for the state are alarmingly poor. The financial news outlet reports, “According to FBI statistics, the violent crime rate is among the nation’s highest.”

The major problem is that it will take decades to move well up the ladder when states show up at the bottom of these lists. Healthcare is a matter of state policy, and access to capital requires changes in financial institutions and state policy. Pulling people out of poverty also includes access to vast capital, a new generation of teachers, and restructured schools. Many of these schools are part of districts the state government does not control.

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Bringing technology companies to a state is also nearly impossible to change. The firms are attracted by an educated workforce and a place people want to live. Workforce changes could take generations to change.

A state with poor metrics across most of those used to measure the benefits of living and doing business in a state will always be compared to the other 49 states, and by these yardsticks, they need to stand still.

Photo of Douglas A. McIntyre
About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

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