New index ranks Louisiana last in social justice
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* Kim Krisberg

Louisiana took last spot in a new report that ranks states according to indicators of social justice.

In March, Loyola University New Orleans’ Jesuit Social Research Institute released its first JustSouth Index, a new project that evaluates levels of social justice in every state and Washington, D.C., and measures indicators related to poverty, racial disparity and immigrant exclusion. According to the index, fellow southern states along the Gulf Coast also ranked low: Mississippi ranked 50, Texas ranked 49, Alabama ranked 48 and Florida ranked 41.

The indicators for the report, which was supported a grant from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, are “measurable, clear, reliable, common across all jurisdictions and actionable,” said Fred Kammer, SJ, JD, executive director of the Jesuit Social Research Institute, in a news release.

“I emphasize ‘actionable’ because, in releasing this first JustSouth Index and in our planning for annual updates, our purposes are to educate the people of this region and to point out how we together can make the kind of changes that promote far greater social justice, equity and inclusion for all of us who live here,” Kammer said.

Among the key findings related to Louisiana, the index found that 9 in every 10 households within the lowest income quartile spend 30 percent or more of their incomes on rent. Louisiana is also home to the highest gap in annual earnings between white and minority workers of similar age.

For more information on the JustSouth Index 2016, visit [www.loyno.edu](http://www.loyno.edu).

*   Copyright The Nation’s Health, American Public Health Association