LSUS economist Douglas White said the local economy is “muddling through,” according to first-quarter data compiled in the Northwest Louisiana Economic Dashboard report.
“We’re not really growing, but we haven’t seen any real decrease either,” said White, whose team at LSUS’s Center for Economic Research assembles the report for the benefit of the business community. “Revenue from (Shreveport) sales taxes have been flat for the past 1-2 years.
“Home prices haven’t come down but haven’t gone up – but they are still higher than in 2023. Of course you prefer to grow, but at least we’re not shrinking.”
One economic bright spot has been casino performance since the introduction of LIVE! Casino in Bossier City, which brings the total of major casinos in the area to seven.
“We have only about six or seven weeks of data since LIVE! opened, but it looks like LIVE! expanded the casino market so far instead of cannibalized business from other casinos,” said White as casinos increased revenue by nearly nine percent from the first quarter of 2024. “It’s mostly new dollars being spent at LIVE! as people come in to check it out.
“It’ll be interesting to see if that continues, or if the newness and excitement wears off, and the market goes back to what it was now with an extra casino fighting for revenue.”
Despite interest rates continuing to climb, which likely won’t reverse itself soon as Moody’s Ratings became the third and last major agency to downgrade the United States’ credit rating, local housing prices haven’t decreased as White expected.
The median house listing price in Shreveport-Bossier is $250,000, up three percent from the first quarter of 2024.
“That’s the thing I’m most shocked about is that the housing market has stayed as strong as it has,” White said. “We’ve experienced shrinking population over the last four years, and I’d expect that to have a negative impact on housing prices.
“And while interest rates aren’t historically high, they are relatively high for the last decade.”
If interest rates do start to come down (6.95 in the first quarter), White wonders whether housing prices will climb even higher.
The Center for Business and Economic Research is planning to release a study about local rent next week.
Inflation rate increases are slowing down as the consumer price index checked in at a 2.3 percent increase for April, a rate that White said the Federal Reserve “can live with.”
Unemployment in the Shreveport-Bossier metro area has remained relatively steady, measuring 4.4 percent in March after a high of five percent this past June.
While oil prices have declined in the past year, the demand for Louisiana natural gas is strong as more liquefied natural gas plants and projects start coming online.
But while White considers the hard economic data to be relatively good, this data doesn’t account for the tariff increases and fluctuation that began in April.
White said he’s heard of several local business owners whose decisions have been affected by tariff fluctuation.
“It’s the price uncertainty,” White said. “If somebody is looking to expand their business, whether that’s new hires or new locations, they have some sort of internal return on investment they’d need to make that decision.
“But there’s inflation, and now there’s tariffs to think about. Most owners are going to want to know exactly what those extra costs are and what they will be going forward before expanding.”
The CBER’s economic dashboard is released each quarter with certain metrics updated each month.
These reports can be found at on the NWLA Economic Dashboard webpage.
“We’re hoping to give people a look at the pulse of the local economy with data instead of just talking about economic vibes,” White said of the dashboard’s purpose. “The data is meant to assist the decision-making process, such as business that are considering expansion.”