BATON ROUGE – The public safety net affects Louisiana residents in every city, town and legislative district. It helps families put food on the table in hard times, access medical care when they need it and provides tuition assistance that makes college more affordable.
To promote a better understanding of the safety net and its impact on families across the state, the Louisiana Budget Project has developed new fact sheets with detailed data for every state House and Senate district. The fact sheets include information about income, education levels and racial breakdown of each district, and the use of various federal and state safety-net programs such as Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.
The fact sheets are intended for use by state policymakers, the news media, advocates and ordinary citizens.
“Government works best when elected officials and advocates have more information at their disposal,” said Jan Moller, Executive Director of the Louisiana Budget Project. “Funding for safety-net services and programs like TOPS are a critical part of the state budget, which also includes billions of dollars in federal pass-through money. These fact sheets are designed to help policymakers better understand how these programs affect the constituents they serve.”
The fact sheets are drawn from state and national data sources, with the intention of creating easy access to district-level information during legislative and administrative decision-making processes.
Click here to view pdfs of the district level fact sheets.
