Louisiana Ranks Low For Financial Well Being

The ability to pay for health care. The ability to feed our families. The lack of large employers. These are three of the key statistics that place our state very near the bottom when it comes to financial well being.

A Gallup-Healthways report placed Louisiana at number 47 in the country based on their criteria for financial well being. While no one really expected our state to be near the top of the list, some experts were surprised at just how low on the list the state wound up.

Mark Rosa is a Professor of Business at Tulane University and he told the Louisiana Radio Network, 

When it comes to inviting a large corporation in where it would pay high paying jobs, the technology and Heavy Corporation, we don’t have a lot of that.

There are only two Louisiana based Fortune 500 companies. Those companies are Entergy and CenturyLink. The lack of big business plays a part in Louisiana's less than stellar ranking.

The big companies with the big jobs, the big payrolls and the big opportunities are not headquartering here, they’re not building significant facilities here and so you’re left with just a bunch of small businesses.

The report also found that in the area of health care, citizens of our state ranked 49th on their ability to pay for that service.  We were just a tick better, 48th, when it came to being able to pay for food. These numbers are based information provided in that same Gallup-Healthways survey.