An ill designed emergency response plan ensured that the poor bore the brunt of the Katrina disaster. Evacuation plans left those without private transportation stranded and at the will of the government. After surviving the horrible conditions of the designated disaster relief areas, many residents were bused to different locations around the country. Lack of economic opportunity for local residents has not only left many without a means to return to New Orleans, but is also currently displacing those within the city. The contracting of rebuilding efforts to companies that privilege migrant labor to local labor has resulted in high unemployment and even further economic devastation.

This preference for migrant labor is the result of economic policies that both drive migration and the impact of migration on local communities. Economic policies put in place by NAFTA, other trade agreements and now the SPP have and will displace millions of people, particularly in the western hemisphere; as a result many are forced to abandon their homes in search of opportunities that will enable them to survive. At the same time migration policies that have lengthened the time of documentation and have sought to criminalize the act of migrating ensure that those economically displaced individuals are propelled into a system in which they provide cheap labor for unjust compensation. In the Gulf Coast, guest worker programs and instances of relaxed labor standards (i.e. OSHA and Davis-Bacon Act for prevailing wages) have exacerbated the vulnerability of reconstruction migrant workers, many suffering from unjust wages, termination, discrimination, labor abuses, and false promises of a road to documentation. These abuses are not uncommon among economically displaced migrant workers and community members displaced by Katrina.

Corporate desires for cheap labor trump workers rights and just employment in both New Orleans reconstruction and agreements such as the SPP. A goal of the SPP is to create a labor force that "responds to market forces." Creation of this labor force includes the casualization and flexibilization of labor, hindering the unionization of workers, allowing companies to move cheap labor where they desire, reducing labor standards, and reducing the responsibility of businesses to provide benefits such as health care and retirement.  These changes will be made all in favor of profits. Analyzing the current situation in New Orleans, it is clear that this process has already begun.