New Orleanians are anxious about jobs, paying bills. Here's what candidates for mayor propose.

Three leading candidates for New Orleans mayor are making ambitious promises to breathe new life into the city's economy, taking note of deep resident frustrations captured by polling last year.

City Council Vice President Helena Moreno, District E City Council member Oliver Thomas and retired judge Arthur Hunter say their plans will reverse the fortunes of a city bedeviled by population loss, increasingly reliant on tourism dollars and facing the effects of a statewide insurance crisis hastened by a series of punishing hurricanes.

If elected, Moreno says she would “overhaul” the city's troubled Safety and Permits Department to cut away red tape small businesses face in the permitting process. Thomas says he would partner with local banks and credit unions to give low-interest loans to small businesses and first-time homebuyers. Hunter says he would expand city programs that offer more job certifications and training.

The election is October 11, six months away. Though all three candidates, plus three others with lower profiles and scarce financing, have announced they will run, the official qualifying period doesn’t open until July.

The candidates' early focus on economic issues underscores the depth of residents' anxiety over the day-to-day struggles of making a living, paying bills and finding or keeping jobs in the nation's fastest-shrinking city. The candidates face the challenge of convincing residents that they can effectively tackle those issues despite national and global forces such as inflation, which fall largely outside local officials' control.

Despite a jump in Orleans Parish residents' overall satisfaction with their quality of life, last fall's Quality of Life Survey, a biannual poll performed by the University of New Orleans Survey Research Center, painted a more dour picture when it came to economic outlook.

Three years ago, 27% percent of voters had confidence there would be increased employment opportunities. That number fell to 21% in 2024.

The platforms

Moreno, a former state lawmaker who has served two council terms and assembled a campaign war chest of nearly $1 million last year as she geared up for a mayoral run, last week promised an “overhaul” of the Safety and Permits Department — part of an effort to make it easier for businesses to get set up in the city.

Her administration would do so by paying more money to in-person staff who can help address questions and cut into a huge backlog of permitting requests, Moreno said.

Her 14-page plan, released last week, promises more funding for the city’s tiny Economic Development Office, in which Moreno says she will create new positions to lead development of underserved areas such as New Orleans East and the Ninth Ward. That office would also redevelop city-owned properties. A legal team, meanwhile, would resolve development issues at major sites such as Plaza Tower, Federal City, and Lake Forest Plaza.

At the heart of Moreno's platform is a series of initiatives she hopes will drive job growth for New Orleans: A "Business Advisory Council" of entrepreneurs and leaders of small and large businesses to gather input about ways to grow jobs; a series of programs aimed at expanding new and emerging industries for New Orleans like bioscience, tech and green energy; and partnerships with leaders in traditionally strong sectors like hospitality and film.

Besides his low-interest loan proposal, Thomas' platform emphasizes revitalizing New Orleans East, which he represents on the council. Thomas, who has served three council terms over the years, says he would expand access to grocery stores, healthcare and "diverse retail options."

He promised to create a citywide development plan, a bid to provide "clarity and predictability for businesses and neighborhoods" in favor of what he described as the current piecemeal system that decides development deals on a "project-by-project" basis.

Perhaps his most ambitious goal, Thomas pledges to build 10,000 new affordable housing units over next eight years. The new developments would "support working families," he said.

Hunter, the former judge, earned a reputation over 24 years on the New Orleans Criminal District Court bench as a champion of reentry programs and public defense.

His economic development platform channels that background: Hunter says he'll focus on job training and after-school programming that exposes children to job opportunities and services.

He pledged, too, to create "clear and fair rules for city contracts" in an effort to root out corruption and to fund a "citywide mural program," the goal of which would be to create jobs for artists while beautifying neighborhoods.

Powerful forces

Ed Chervenak, a political scientist and analyst who runs UNO's Survey Research Center, likened the election environment to 2009's mayor's race, when then-Lt. Gov. Mitch Landrieu coasted to victory on a promise to return prosperity and functional government to a city emerging from the devastation of Hurricane Katrina.

Landrieu's tenure, which lasted from 2010 until 2018, saw strides in the city's economic outlook across a number of categories: its population increased, as did jobs, tourism and property values, though the population started to decline in 2016.

The slide continued in the years thereafter, as the New Orleans-Metairie metropolitan area saw the steepest population drop of any large metro area nationwide between 2020 to 2023, Census data showed.

New Orleans lost another 2,470 people in 2024; the metro area, once again, was the fastest-shrinking in the United States that year.

The COVID-19 pandemic and Hurricanes Laura, Delta, Zeta and Ida in 2020 and 2021 hit the city hard. New Orleans remained about 22,600 jobs short of its pre-COVID levels in 2023, an economist's report found that year. The area economy was hindered by a lagging convention business and weak oil and gas activity in the Gulf of Mexico, the report said.

In February, local officials and business leaders touted the impact of Super Bowl LIX in injecting life into New Orleans' economy. But the big game's windfall didn't extend evenly to every small business owner or artist, Gambit reported after the event wrapped up.

Further buffeting residents' economic outlook is President Donald Trump's economic policy, which in the past 10 days included a slate of massive new tariffs which Trump suddenly repealed after days of plunging markets indices.

Though such forces fall largely beyond the mayor's control, New Orleans voters will look for a mayor who they feel will restore a sense of stability to their routines, said Silas Lee, a veteran political analyst and Xavier University professor.

Many residents feel as though their economic opportunities have shriveled under outgoing mayor LaToya Cantrell, Lee noted. Come October, they will be looking for a change.

"This election reflects a desire to turn the page and start anew," Lee said.