New York City’s 5.6% unemployment rate remains the worst in the state, though that’s partly because citizens in more depressed areas have either given up looking for work or have moved away to look elsewhere.
Bigger picture: The Empire State still hasn’t recovered all 2 million of the jobs it lost during the pandemic, and likely won’t for months.
And the coming state budget is guaranteed to make the business climate even worse.
As of last month, New York is more than 100,000 jobs short of the February 2020 level, while the rest of the country is up about 5 million.
Want a stronger contrast? The Empire Center’s E.J. McMahon notes, “Before the pandemic, New York had 404,000 more private jobs than Florida,” but by last month “Florida’s job count had moved 341,000 ahead of New York’s.”
New York’s insane pandemic policies only partly explain that.
Longer-term, our state’s high taxes, stifling regulations and soaring energy costs all discourage job-creation — and this year’s budget will only make them all worse.
Yes, Gov. Kathy Hochul wants to avoid major new taxes, but she’d raise the MTA-region surtax on employers.
Plus, the Legislature wants to raise income-tax rates on the highest earners — who already account for a huge share of state revenues, but are also (not coincidentally) increasingly moving away.
And the budget’s spending hikes will increase coming budget gaps — a recipe for future tax hikes.
The Citizen’s Budget Commission warns that Hochul’s spending plan means a $15 billion-a-year structural deficit by 2027, while the Assembly and state Senate proposals translate to a $20 billion-a-year hole.
Meanwhile, the gov and lawmakers are debating how much to hike New York’s already-high minimum wage — ignoring the way that makes lower-skilled workers not worth hiring.
Which means that, even when they finally get work papers, the tens of thousands of illegal migrants who’ve come to the city largely won’t be able to find legal work.
As for energy costs: The budget will double (or maybe triple) down on the perverse “net zero” drive, which involves at least half a trillion in spending on green energy and infrastructure (costs that will mostly be covered by your utility bills) and is certain to produce frequent blackouts, since wind and solar are fundamentally unreliable.
New York’s economy is steadily losing ground, and the state’s leaders are about to accelerate the decline. Excelsior?