Is Louisiana Governor Telling Truth About Our Population?

Governor John Bel Edwards was asked about the population losses in Louisiana and he says “as I recall, we went through a census in 2020 and we didn’t lose people, we gained population.”

Is that true?

Technically, he is right. From census to census, Louisiana did gain population. We had about 4.5 million people in 2010 and we had about 4.6 million people in 2020. So that is a gain of about 100,000 people. But let’s take a look at the numbers over the past 8 years while Edwards was in charge of our state. Remember he was not the boss between 2010 and 2016.

Governor John Bel Edwards spoke to the Baton Rouge Press Club this week to give a run down on his priorities for his final year in office.

On Jan. 11, 2016, John Bel Edwards was sworn in as the 56th governor of Louisiana. He won re-election and began his second term in January of 2020.

Between 2016 and now, Louisiana has lost population every year. That is if you believe the numbers from the U.S. Census Bureau. We lost about 8 thousand people in his first year.  Another 9,000 left the state in 2017. And that trend continued every single year Edwards was running our state. Prior to Edwards taking office, Louisiana’s population climbed every year between 2010 and 2016. His very first year in office is when our population started to dip. He can’t blame the pandemic. The numbers started falling 4 years before the health crisis.

So is Edwards stretching the truth when he says we gained population? You be the judge.

Edwards also added “we should all be worried if we have people moving out of state if they’re in large numbers, but I don’t believe the facts bear that out.”

The Governor also claims the 2020 census was done in the middle of five hurricanes that devastated our state and thousands of people were not at home. But he says “we still didn’t lose population.” He’s right. From 2010 to 2020 we did not lose people. But the decline began in 2016 when he took office.

Here Are the Louisiana Population Numbers from the U.S. Census Bureau:

April 1, 2010 4,544,635

April 1, 2011 4.576,254

April 1, 2012 4,602,067

April 1, 2013 4,626,040

April 1, 2014 4,645,938

April 1, 2015 4,666,998

April 1, 2016 4,681,346

April 1, 2017 4,673,673

April 1, 2018 4,664,450

April 1, 2019 4658,285

April 1, 2020 4,657,757

April 1 2021 4,624,047

April 2022 4,590,000

By the way, Caddo Parish had the largest decline in people over the past 15 years, losing about 22,000 residents. St. Tammany Parish had the largest growth with 34,824 more residents.