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Louisiana's 4 largest metros rank top 1/3 in GDP per Capita amongst US largest metros
Posted on 4/2/25 at 7:55 pm
Posted on 4/2/25 at 7:55 pm
I was very surprised to see this and tried thinking of explanations for each. Some are bewildering. There are 382 largest US metro's that are ranked here. This data was taken in 2021. Inflation has risen 22% since then. Whatever the value is here, you can conceivably multiply by 1.22x to get in 2025 dollars. I realize Laffy metro is larger than Lake Charles*
GDP per Capita (2021) GDP per Capita (2025)
41st: Lake Charles........ $75,066... $91,580
94th: New Orleans ........ $64,855 ... $79,123
99th: Baton Rouge........ $64,455 ... $78,635
118th: Shreveport........ $62,065 ... $75,719
Here is the data source from Wikipedia: LINK
These Louisiana metros rank in the bottom 100 of the largest 382 US metros and have a GDP per capita that is $20,000 to $30,000 lower than the cities above:
282nd: Lafayette
291st: Alexandria
305th: Houma
337th: Monroe
370th (bottom 12): Hammond ($36,000 in 2021)
I don't know what to think of this. Is it accurate? Below is my rationale on why there are 4 metro's in LA in the top 1/3rd, and 1 near the 90th percentile (Lake Chuck):
Lake Charles- Maybe because a lot of refineries, LNG, and chemical plants? There's no royalties involved in these, however the large plants to population ratio is very high here compared to like a Houston where there are a lot of plants, but 7 million in the metro compared to 250,000 in Lake Charles metro. It still baffles me how Lake Charles is 90th percentile in GDP per Capita amongst US metros because not every Joe is working for CITGO.
New Orleans- Maybe because it's a somewhat decently large metro and has corporate jobs, in addition to tourism.
Baton Rouge- Head scratcher. Maybe a combo of refineries/plants, state work (which don't really make much), LSU employment. I still think that's only a smaller portion of the metro though to explain being top 1/3rd.
Shreveport- Haynesville Shale royalties and the service industry related to Haynesville. None of the E&P companies have offices housing petroleum engineers, geologists, or finance BD here. That is all in Houston (Paloma, Southwestern) or Dallas (Aethon, Comstock), CHK is in OK City. I literally can't think of anything else that would explain it.
GDP per Capita (2021) GDP per Capita (2025)
41st: Lake Charles........ $75,066... $91,580
94th: New Orleans ........ $64,855 ... $79,123
99th: Baton Rouge........ $64,455 ... $78,635
118th: Shreveport........ $62,065 ... $75,719
Here is the data source from Wikipedia: LINK
These Louisiana metros rank in the bottom 100 of the largest 382 US metros and have a GDP per capita that is $20,000 to $30,000 lower than the cities above:
282nd: Lafayette
291st: Alexandria
305th: Houma
337th: Monroe
370th (bottom 12): Hammond ($36,000 in 2021)
I don't know what to think of this. Is it accurate? Below is my rationale on why there are 4 metro's in LA in the top 1/3rd, and 1 near the 90th percentile (Lake Chuck):
Lake Charles- Maybe because a lot of refineries, LNG, and chemical plants? There's no royalties involved in these, however the large plants to population ratio is very high here compared to like a Houston where there are a lot of plants, but 7 million in the metro compared to 250,000 in Lake Charles metro. It still baffles me how Lake Charles is 90th percentile in GDP per Capita amongst US metros because not every Joe is working for CITGO.
New Orleans- Maybe because it's a somewhat decently large metro and has corporate jobs, in addition to tourism.
Baton Rouge- Head scratcher. Maybe a combo of refineries/plants, state work (which don't really make much), LSU employment. I still think that's only a smaller portion of the metro though to explain being top 1/3rd.
Shreveport- Haynesville Shale royalties and the service industry related to Haynesville. None of the E&P companies have offices housing petroleum engineers, geologists, or finance BD here. That is all in Houston (Paloma, Southwestern) or Dallas (Aethon, Comstock), CHK is in OK City. I literally can't think of anything else that would explain it.
This post was edited on 4/2/25 at 8:07 pm
6
Posted on 4/2/25 at 8:02 pm to Saunson69
How is Hammond on the list but not Mand/Cov? I guess they are counted as separate metro areas? Or part of NewO?
Posted on 4/2/25 at 8:03 pm to GREENHEAD22
Mandeville/Covington is in New Orleans metro.
Posted on 4/2/25 at 8:06 pm to Saunson69
quote:
Shreveport-
Packed with old money
Posted on 4/2/25 at 8:06 pm to Saunson69
quote:
It still baffles me how Lake Charles is 90th percentile in GDP per Capita amongst US metros because not every Joe is working for CITGO.
GDP Per Capita is not a measure of average salary. It is a measure of the total economic output divided by population. If the economic output of the plants is high and the population is low, that will explain it no matter what portion of the population is working at the plants.
Posted on 4/2/25 at 8:12 pm to BiggerBear
quote:
It is a measure of the total economic output divided by population.
That'd make sense. All of the nat gas upstream and oil downstream operations revenue happens here, but it goes to companies, shareholders, and offices/employees/C-suite in Texas.
This post was edited on 5/3/25 at 10:59 am
Posted on 6/22/25 at 11:07 pm to BiggerBear
The vast Majority are.
Pretty much three jobs you can work in around Lake Charles. Plants, Construction and Casinos.
Whether you are in a salary position, lab, engineer, operations, contractor, maintenance, security or taking their money at one of the 4 casinos Dealers, Hotel staff, Restaurants staff, valet, Golf Course.
LNG is exploding in the area (Cameron, Calcasieu and Beaumont) which will undoubtedly employ alot of people out of immediate LC area (Sulphur/Westlake/Moss Bluff). Alot of people will be making the hour to hour and half drive to Venture or Golden Pass when they are fully operational.
Pretty much three jobs you can work in around Lake Charles. Plants, Construction and Casinos.
Whether you are in a salary position, lab, engineer, operations, contractor, maintenance, security or taking their money at one of the 4 casinos Dealers, Hotel staff, Restaurants staff, valet, Golf Course.
LNG is exploding in the area (Cameron, Calcasieu and Beaumont) which will undoubtedly employ alot of people out of immediate LC area (Sulphur/Westlake/Moss Bluff). Alot of people will be making the hour to hour and half drive to Venture or Golden Pass when they are fully operational.
Posted on 6/22/25 at 11:13 pm to Saunson69
What do you want us to do with this info?
Posted on 6/22/25 at 11:14 pm to Saunson69
So you say "amongst" instead of "among" because you want to sound smart or because you are stupid?
Posted on 6/23/25 at 1:42 am to Strannix
quote:
Packed with old money
Even if this were true that isn’t how GDP works.
Posted on 6/23/25 at 6:56 am to Saunson69
quote:you don’t know what GDP stands for do you
GDP
Posted on 6/23/25 at 7:05 am to cgrand
quote:Goddam Princes/Princesses
you don’t know what GDP stands for do you
Posted on 6/23/25 at 7:07 am to BiggerBear
quote:
GDP not a measure of salary
Ding ding ding.
High revenue per employee jobs.
Chemical plants might have revenue of $1 million per employee. Feedstock Costa etc eat into that and profit isn't all that high per employee.
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