Companies rush to apply for Louisiana’s Quality Jobs before it sunsets

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(The Center Square) - Nearly 100 companies submitted last-minute applications to Louisiana's Quality Jobs tax incentive program in the final week before it sunset on June 30, records show — a rush that collectively represented over $52 billion in estimated investments and more than $8 billion in projected total payroll.

The now-defunct program, which offered payroll rebates to companies creating new jobs in Louisiana, attracted high-profile applicants such as Meta, Hyundai, ExxonMobil, Shell, The Dow Chemical Company, Air Products and Woodland Biofuels. In total, these applications promised:

55,102 total jobs
6,790 new jobs
31,651 construction jobs
$600.9 million in new payroll
$5.7 billion in construction payroll

In an interview, LED Secretary Susan Bourgeois explained the broader context behind the sunset of Quality Jobs, noting that the program had not been meaningfully updated in two decades. Over time, it began to blur with capital investment incentives, causing confusion and reducing the effectiveness of both tools.

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The High Impact Jobs Program replaced Quality Jobs on July 1. The new program is more narrowly tailored to encourage higher-wage job creation, especially among smaller businesses.

The program "incentivizes companies to create new jobs that pay well above the average income of each parish," LED said. "This is an aggressive approach that enables our mission to increase wages, and it benefits existing Louisiana companies – small, mid-size and large – exactly the same as recruited companies."

Bourgeois emphasized that wage growth is now a cornerstone of the department's strategic plan, which she said had been lacking for decades.

"If at the end of the day Louisiana citizens aren't enjoying the ability to have ever-growing wages to support themselves and their family, then are we really effective?" Bourgeois said.

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Between 2012 and 2023, Louisiana's median personal income rose from $69,323 to $97,834 in nominal dollars — an increase of about 41%. But when adjusted for inflation, median income climbed just 16%, from $78,954 to $91,908.

The state's average personal income grew from $107,051 to $146,374 in nominal terms, but inflation-adjusted gains were smaller — from $121,924 to $137,507, up only 13%.

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