Prosperity takes a detour in La. countryside

"While the economy is strong overall, we recognize that some communities have yet to feel the full benefits of the ongoing expansion," Fed Chairman Jerome Powell said. "We are conducting research, collaborating with communities and assessing financial regulations so that our nation's current prosperity will benefit small towns and cities alike." In some Louisiana parishes, as in the nation’s counties in rural areas, a lack of opportunity and infrastructure like good roads and broadband internet access is hobbling growth.Powell said unemployment in the poorest rural counties is more than double the national average last year. This while those employed or looking for jobs in their prime working years in rural areas have increasingly lagged during the current expansion.The Census Bureau recently reported that there are low percentages of penetration of broadband internet in many rural areas, but particularly those in the Mississippi River basin — as in Louisiana’s Mississippi and Red River delta parishes. Some parishes in the greater Baton Rouge area, the southern end of the Mississippi Delta, are home to some of the poorest communities in the country.Ultimately, healthy cities have served as engines of prosperity — and thus magnets for talented young people. But if, as Powell says, the benefits of economic growth are to be more evenly shared, rural development must be part of the national agenda, and nowhere is that more apparent in Louisiana.