Editorial: Louisiana's population loss should be an alarm bell

As legislators dig into a wide-ranging agenda for the regular session that must end by June 3, we'd like to suggest a little reading to put their task in perspective: last week's story in this newspaper documenting stark population loss in every corner of our state.

We'll let reporter Jeff Adelson tell it: "The precipitous loss of residents that Louisiana has seen over the past three years has been spread across nearly every parish, with urban and rural areas alike seeing large decreases," he wrote. "Some of the steepest declines were in areas hard-hit by hurricanes in recent years, or in parishes that have long struggled with dwindling populations. But the exodus from Louisiana was far more widespread than just those regions."

That's an alarming thought. Yes, Louisiana has lost some people due to catastrophic events, a hazard of life in the hurricane zone. But the figures from the U.S. Census Bureau — 84,000 fewer people living here in 2023 than in 2020 — suggest something more systemic is going on.

And whatever that is, Louisiana is doing a poor job of fixing it. As demographer Allison Plyer, of The Data Center in New Orleans, put it: ''Our recent policies are not supporting population gain.''

That statement alone should serve as an alarm bell to the new Landry administration and the folks now gathering in Baton Rouge, as well as officials from cities and parishes all over the state.

Plyer pointed to one obvious priority for lawmakers: invest in higher education, because a well-educated workforce tends to drive population growth.

Another is to tackle long-standing conditions that lead to poor health outcomes, because Louisianans tend to die at a younger age than other Americans.

We know that crime and infrastructure challenges in cities try residents' patience, and that there's little economic opportunity in many rural areas. These are problems that local and state government should tackle together.

Other likely factors, such as threats from climate change, are mostly beyond local control, although the state can and must enact policies to mitigate threats.

Some of those threats undermine residents' ability to afford to stay. To that end, we're glad that lawmakers are trying to expand homeowners' insurance options and encourage the construction of fortified roofs, which, hopefully, will reduce the cost of premiums. Other proposed bills favor the insurance industry over consumers, and lawmakers should be wary of such changes.

Instead, they should focus on measures that directly address the problem of population loss, rather than on hard-right, ideological battles that don't solve the problem — and may even send a message that Louisiana is not a welcoming state.

Because unless our leaders — and all of us — figure out how to turn Louisiana into a place that people want to stay, not leave, little else matters.