New Orleans to top US wage growth in 2006: study 17 minutes ago

New Orleans to top US wage growth in 2006: study 17 minutes ago

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Wage growth in New Orleans and Baton Rouge, Louisiana, is expected to far outstrip other U.S. metropolitan areas in 2006 due to a massive increase in construction jobs, according a study released on Friday by the U.S. Conference of Mayors.

The study, conducted by economic consulting group Global Insight Inc., forecast that wages in the New Orleans area would rise 4.3 percent or $1,472 over 2005. It said wages in Baton Rouge, the state capital swelled by Gulf Coast hurricane evacuees, also will rise 4.3 percent, or about $1,396.
(snip)

Reconstruction has changed the whole face of the New Orleans economy, said James Diffley, a managing director at Global Insight.

"What's not there are a lot of low-level service sector jobs that fed the tourism industry. And they have been replaced by higher paid construction jobs, but these aren't the same people doing them," he said.
(snip/...)

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060526/bs_nm/economy_cities_dc;_ylt=A9G_RwGFgHdEI9wAvxkWIr0F;_ylu=X3oDMTA5aHJvMDdwBHNlYwN5bmNhdA--

It's pretty easy to show "growth" in a city that was under water for a month, and whose poorest people were shipped out to the hinterlands, never to be seen again..

If you live alone and are unemployed, the minute you get a job, your household's employment rate is 100% better..

No jobs due to hurricane/flood --> contractors jobs=Massive increase! wow.

The ALA is going have its convention in NOLA in June -- the first convention since Katrina. I'd bet that the old festering stale beer and cigarette smoke mixed with Creole spices smell that screams NO at daybreak to suddenly evaporate mysteriously once the tourists were headed towards Bourbon St. and the Cathederal once cafe au lait and beignets (the perfect morning after potion) will be back continuously! Noone to hose down the streets and scrape off the puke left anymore. Their houses were destroyed. They can't afford to live up by Tulane or in the Quarter -- not now, with the "new rents".
The city will only be a shell of itself without working class Creole culture intact. One had just as likely have as enjoyable time at the new Disney New Orleans in Florida, provided there were hookers, hustlers and con artists and lax liquor laws for that true ambience...Piped muzak vaguely resembling that that was once live from Tipitinas or Preservation Hall could be piped in!
Bye NOLA. I loved ya once. You were the best the South had to offer.

Unintentional. (gulp)

until now, the phrase "New Orleans to top wage growth" would have made about as much sense as "Bush, Blair to share Nobel Peace Prize". Will wonders never cease. Of course, they've still got a way to go: while I was tracking down a report of Louisiana trying to cut out-of-state evacuees off from Medicaid (!), I saw a job posting in about my present salary range, low $30K's. Thing is, it was for an attorney. A public interest attorney, to be sure, but $30-33K for an attorney? Ye gods. How are the 99% of people who aren't attorneys supposed to afford the new San Francisco-like rents?

:(