Southwest Latest Research and Notices

Research and Reports

• NEW An Analysis of Southern energy expenditures and prices, 1984-2006. In the South, where heavy usage of electricity and gasoline causes consumers to spend a larger-than-average share of their budgets on energy-related goods and services, energy prices have increased sharply in recent years. On the whole, however, energy expenses actually made up a smaller share of Southern budgets in 2006 than they did in 1984.
• NEW The effects of Hurricane Katrina on the New Orleans economy. Hurricane Katrina devastated the New Orleans economy; tourism, port operations, and educational services, the foundation of the city's economy, survived, offering a base for recovery.

Notices

• Discontinuance of mailing paper copies of the Southwest Statistical Summary
  As of April 1, 2008, subscribers will no longer receive paper copies of the Southwest Statistical Summary in the mail. The CPI portion of that publication will continue to be available through the Bureau's Web site at http://www.bls.gov/ro6/fax/cpinewtb.pdf.
  A free email subscription service is available for the CPI summary. Shortly after the CPI table is posted online each month, subscribers to this service receive an email message containing a link to the web page. The subscription form with a list of available regional office CPI summaries (blue cards) is located at http://www.bls.gov/bls/list.htm. The "Southwest Statistical Summary" page showing labor force and industry employment for selected states can be downloaded from http://www.bls.gov/ro6/economy.pdf
  The mailing of regional CPI summaries and other regional publications is being discontinued as a result of unanticipated budget constraints faced by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. See http://www.bls.gov/bls/budgetimpact.htm for details.
  
• New Industry Classification System -- Industry employment data were converted to the 2002 NAICS basis in 2003.