Reports

Communities in the Rockaways were some of the hardest hit by the pandemic. Despite the challenges, local economic indicators have slowly improved as the pandemic has worn on, with the number of Rockaways businesses growing in 2020 and 2021. Since the City’s reopening following the height of the pandemic, local stakeholders in the Rockaways have made concerted efforts to promote economic recovery and improved environmental conditions, with a focus on mitigating the impact of extreme climate events.

New York City’s transportation and warehousing sector regained 82% of its pandemic job losses as of April 2022. The sector’s relatively strong job gains over the past two years were fueled by increased demand for moving goods rather than people during the pandemic. An explosion in e⁠-⁠commerce led the growth in the courier and messenger, and warehousing and storage subsectors, which now well exceed pre-pandemic employment levels.

New York City lags the rest of the State and the nation in restoring pandemic job losses and in rebounding to pre-pandemic levels of unemployment. The recovery has also been uneven, with high-wage economic sectors generally faring better than low-wage sectors. This report aims to understand the main differences in labor force participation among the City’s workers and the reasons for the City’s slow recovery when compared to rest of the State and the nation.

From 2010 to 2020, Brooklyn experienced substantial economic growth, with employment and business growth rates outpacing the rest of New York City. However, the pandemic halted its economic progress and exacerbated existing inequalities in the borough. Brooklyn’s economy is showing signs of recovering to pre-pandemic levels, but City and State officials will need to collaborate with community leaders to ensure an equitable recovery.

Accelerating consumer price increases beginning in the spring of 2021 have led to the highest inflation rate in 30 years in the New York City Metropolitan Area. Consumer spending habits have already shifted, and persistent inflation on essential household items, such as housing and food, will limit purchasing power and squeeze household budgets absent stronger wage growth.

The COVID-19 pandemic hit New York City particularly hard, causing massive job losses at major employers such as restaurants, hotels and retail stores. These dashboards follow a series of reports released over the past two years tracking economic data and the effect of the pandemic on these critical sectors and will help identify areas of weakness as well as positive developments.

Arts, Entertainment and Recreation | Construction | Office | Restaurant | Retail | Securities | Tourism | Transportation and Warehousing

When the COVID-19 pandemic began, many businesses in retail trade, restaurant, and arts, entertainment and recreation closed. This report examines the damage the pandemic has inflicted on those sectors, and considers the distribution of federal funds for businesses in the City, particularly for businesses in low- and moderate-income communities and in historically underutilized business zones.

Flushing, and the surrounding neighborhoods that make up the greater Flushing area, enjoyed outsized employment and business growth from 2000 until Queens became the epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic. Local challenges that existed before the pandemic, such as affordable housing and broadband access, have made recovery more difficult, but key positive indicators such as job recovery are reasons for optimism.

zh: Chinese | ko: Korean

The COVID-19 pandemic wiped out years of growth in New York City’s office sector. Stay-at-home orders forced many office workers to shift to remote work, as businesses reliant on in-person interactions with customers were forced to reduce capacity or remain closed for extended periods. As a result, in City Fiscal Year 2022, the full market value of office buildings fell $28.6 billion, the first decline in more than 20 years, and property taxes declined more than $850 million. Timing its recovery is an open question, however, as employers continue to offer work-from-home options.

Population in the Bronx grew by 10.4 percent from 2000 to 2017 (faster than any other borough), driven primarily by the growth in the immigrant population, but it declined in the next two years to 1.42 million residents.

The COVID-19 pandemic brought a halt to the growth of the construction industry nationwide which, prior to the pandemic, had been growing strongly. This was especially true in New York State and New York City.

In 2020, the 10-year period of record growth in tourism came to an end, and the number of visitors to New York City fell by 67 percent to 22.3 million (from 66.6 million in 2019). OSC estimates the industry’s economic impact dropped by 75 percent from $80.3 billion in 2019 to $20.2 billion in 2020.

Comptroller DiNapoli has launched an interactive online tool of subway ridership that details where straphangers are, and are not, returning to the subway system, alongside neighborhood and local demographics, employment and income.

As of December 2020, arts, entertainment and recreation employment declined by 66 percent from one year earlier, the largest decline among the City’s economic sectors.

Although New York City was an early epicenter for COVID-19, only 45.6 percent of firms in the City received Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans, below the national average of 50.9 percent.

The COVID-19 pandemic has affected the retail trade sector unevenly, with online retailers and some essential businesses experiencing growth and other large retail segments seeing falling revenues. The impact has been most obvious in Manhattan, where foot traffic in key corridors initially fell by more than 90 percent and remains below 50 percent of its 2019 levels as tourists, commuters, office workers and residents have responded to pandemic-related shutdowns and public health concerns.

The restaurant industry is essential to New York City’s social and economic fabric. From small, family-owned restaurants and food carts to four-star world-famous establishments, the City abounds with restaurants that offer cuisines from every corner of the globe.

In March and April 2020, Congress passed four stimulus bills to address the COVID-19 pandemic’s impact on the public health system and the economy. As Congress debates additional relief measures, it is worth reviewing the targeting of the initial funding in order to inform new policy to counter the virus and its economic effects.

New York City is benefiting from the longest and largest job expansion since the end of World War II.

According to data from the U.S. Census Bureau, only 41 percent of working-age people with disabilities in New York City were in the labor force in 2017.