New York by the Numbers
Monthly Economic and Fiscal Outlook

A Message from the Comptroller

Dear New Yorkers,

If you’re a regular reader, some of the economic data for New York City this month will look familiar: modest but steady growth in jobs (now at about 95% of pre-pandemic levels), in subway and bus ridership (a bit under 60%), and even in office occupancy (though still lower, surpassing 40% of pre-pandemic levels for the first time).

So perhaps we can start to discern some of the patterns that New Yorkers are settling into: spending less time on average in office buildings, transit stations, and retail establishments, and more time near their homes, on bikes, and in parks.

Our spotlight this month looks at new data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics to focus on some of the patterns in changes to private establishments — across the five boroughs and by industry sector — during the last two calendar years.

It won’t surprise you to learn that the largest net loss in the number of business establishments was in Manhattan, taking the borough below 50% of the city’s businesses for the first time. Or that Brooklyn saw the largest increase in new private businesses, buoyed by growth in the tech and administrative services sectors. Though accelerated by the pandemic, these are longstanding trends.

Outer borough growth has not been evenly shared, however. The Bronx is the only other borough besides Manhattan with a reduced percentage of New York City’s overall private establishments since 1990. As we explore new uses for Midtown commercial spaces (an important concern, as we highlighted last month), we’ll also need to focus more on what’s happening in working-class and low-income neighborhoods if we want a balanced and equitable recovery.

One statistic especially jumped out at me this month: Largely as a result of inflation, real hourly wage growth has plummeted during the pandemic. That has eroded the purchasing power of all workers, but of course it bites especially hard for the lowest wage earners – so much so that gains achieved through the pre-pandemic expansion, and supported by increasing the minimum wage in NYC to $15 per hour as of 2019, have been significantly diminished.

One small but important group of low-wage workers did get a boost last week. Mayor Adams and DC37 reached a deal to raise lifeguard pay to $19.46 per hour (with a $1,000 retention boost if they work all summer). Hopefully the laws of supply and demand will work to shorten the lines at the City’s pools (and keep New Yorkers safe and cool) in the hot weeks ahead.

Bring sunscreen, and we’ll keep watching the numbers.

The U.S. Economy

• U.S. labor market continues to show strength with employers adding 372,000 jobs in June, exceeding the Bloomberg consensus expectation of 265,000.
• The unemployment rate remained unchanged at 3.6% while the growth of average hourly earnings was +5.1% year over year.
• The nation’s Consumer Price Index (CPI) for all items rose 8.6% in May compared to the previous year marking the highest read since December 1981.
• Persistent and higher than expected inflation prompted the Federal Reserve to raise the target Federal Funds rate by a more aggressive 75 basis points at the June Federal Open Market Committee meeting, with anticipation that they will continue to raise rates in July and September.

NYC Labor Markets

• The private sector gained 13,800 new jobs in New York City in May 2022 (Table 1), a slight deceleration from the 17,800 gains averaged in the first four months of the year.
• Most industries showed some gains with the largest occurring in Health Care and Social Assistance (+7,800), Professional and Business Services (+8,100), Information (+4,300) and Accommodation and Food Services (+1,300).
• As of May, the private sector is back to 95% of the February 2020 peak level.
• Information and Health Care and Social Assistance are now well above their February 2020 levels. Accommodation and Food Services, Retail, Arts, Entertainment and Recreation remain well below.

Table 1: Seasonally Adjusted NYC Private Employment, by Industry (‘000s)

SOURCE: NYS DOL, and NYC Office of the Comptroller. Due to revisions to earlier months, numbers may not match to previous monthly newsletters

• The latest data shows that real hourly wage rate growth (12-month average) in the City declined in May as high inflation has eroded purchasing power of all wage earners (Chart 1).
• For the lowest wage earners (the bottom 25%), gains in real wages achieved toward the end of the pre-Covid-19 decade-long expansion, and supported by the increases in the New York State minimum wage that began in 2016 and culminated in the increase to $15 per hour as of 2019, are now eroding.

Chart 1

SOURCE: Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages. Low wage sectors and high wage sectors are chosen according to average quarterly wages in 2019

• The New York City unemployment rate, not seasonally adjusted, was 5.7% in May, down from 10.2% in the prior year, but still well above the nation’s (3.6% in May 2022).
• Using a three-month average, the unemployment rate for Black New Yorkers dropped slightly to 10.9% in May, while the unemployment rate for Hispanic New Yorkers increased slightly to 6.2%, compared to 3.5% for non-Hispanic White and 4.7% for Asian New Yorkers (Chart 2).
• Compared to pre-pandemic levels, the unemployment rate was 1.5 percentage points higher for Hispanic residents, 3.0 percentage points higher for Asian New Yorkers, 2.0 percentage points higher for non-Hispanic White New Yorkers, and 5.4 percentage points higher for Black New Yorkers.

Chart 2

SOURCE: Current Population Survey, unemployment rates are not seasonally adjusted, unemployment rates by race/ethnicity calculated as 3-month averages. 3-month averages are used due to sample size concerns.

• As seen below in Chart 3, the unemployment rate across all five boroughs continues a steady decline, though it remains persistently higher in the Bronx.

Chart 3

SOURCE: NYS Department of Labor, not seasonally adjusted.

NYC Real Estate Markets

• Citywide data from Streeteasy.com shows the continuation of an extraordinary surge in median asking rents, jumping from $3,000 in March to $3,200 in April and climbing further to $3,349 in May, largely driven by rentals in Manhattan and Brooklyn. Median asking rents on Streeteasy.com have now grown by 29 percent over the last twelve months (Chart 4).
• Rental inventory ticked up slightly in May, rising by nearly 2,200 housing units from the prior month. However, with renters returning to the city, inventory is now down 46 percent overall over the last twelve months.

Chart 4

SOURCE: Streeteasy.com

• As shown in Chart 5, the office market continues to underperform in 2022. Vacant space remains at very high levels, near a plateau where it has remained for the past five quarters.

Chart 5

SOURCE: CoStar

New Yorkers’ Mobility

• The latest Google mobility data shown in Table 2 is broken out by borough this month. Consistent with the decline in retail establishments noted in the Spotlight below, time at retail and recreation locations remains below pre-pandemic levels.
• Also consistent with the Spotlight, this data shows that Manhattan generally trails other NYC boroughs in terms of the recovery in time spent for various activities compared to pre-pandemic levels, with time spent at retail grocery, and pharmacy, and parks underperforming the other boroughs.
• In all boroughs, people are spending more time outdoors (while reflective in part of warmer weather in May, the underlying data show an increasing trend in time spent in parks since January 2020), and the shift away from transit is consistent with the next two charts below.

Table 2: Time Spent Compared to January 2020 by Borough and Activity: % change

 SOURCE: GPS mobility data indexed to 1/3/2020 to 2/6/2020, from Google COVID-19 Community Mobility Reports.

• Biking continues to be more popular in the city than before the pandemic. During June, more than 714,000 bikers crossed the four East River bridges, 40% more than the number of trips recorded in June 2019 (Chart 6).
• The Brooklyn Bridge saw the highest growth, as the number of riders nearly doubled from about 63,000 in June 2019 to more than 122,000 in June 2022, likely due in part to the addition of a protected two-way bike lane, off the crowded pedestrian walkway.

Chart 6

SOURCE: NYC Comptroller’s Office analysis of New York City Department of Transportation, Bicycle Counts

• Weekday ridership on MTA subways, buses, and commuter rails continued to gradually improve in the month of June, as subway ridership reached 58% of pre-pandemic levels (Chart 7).
• As compared to pre-pandemic ridership, weekday performance on the commuter rails surpassed subway ridership in June, with weekday ridership averaging 63% on the Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) and 61% on Metro-North Railroad (MNR).
• Vehicle traffic on MTA bridges and tunnels remained close to 100% of pre-pandemic volume throughout the spring.

Chart 7

SOURCE: Metropolitan Transportation Authority, Day-by-Day Ridership Numbers

NOTE: Excludes federal holidays.

NYC Business and Tourism

• The latest security card data from Kastle Systems show New York City area office occupancy began to tick upwards at the beginning of June and then remained flat for most of the month.  In the final four weeks of June, New York City office occupancy averaged 41.8 percent, up from an average of 37.9 percent in the prior five weeks (Chart 8).
• Although still behind the Texas metro areas, this data shows NYC reaching or surpassing other East and West Coast cities for the first time.

Chart 8

SOURCE: Kastle Systems, weekdays excluding Federal holidays

• Weekly ticket sales on Broadway dipped slightly in June but remained above 80% of pre-pandemic levels (Chart 9). Broadway shows grossed $30 million in revenue for the week ending July 3^rd, compared to $34 million during the same week in 2019.

Chart 9

SOURCE: The Broadway League

• Passenger volume at New York City-area airports improved to 91% of pre-COVID levels in May, slightly surpassing nationwide trends for the first time since the pandemic began (Chart 10).

According to monthly reports from the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, domestic passenger volume at local New York City airports reached 7.7 million in April 2022, exceeding domestic volume of 7.6 million in April 2019. However, international volume was still down 28% (though improving from last month at 35%).

Chart 10

SOURCE: U.S. Transportation Security Administration and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.

• Pedestrian volume in Times Square improved to an average of 311,321 per day in May, more than doubling foot traffic from May 2021. However, volume was still 17% below the same month in 2019 (Chart 11).

Chart 11

SOURCE: Times Square Alliance.

City Finances

Personal Income Tax Revenue

Personal income tax (PIT) data for June provided the first indication that the decline in the stock market is starting to have a toll on City tax collections.

• June estimated payments, which are closely tied to capital gains realizations, were down sharply from the previous year. (Table 3)
• Estimated payments were 31% lower than in 2021, falling to the lowest levels since 2017.

Table 3: June Estimated Payments,  $ Mil

Source NYS Dept of Taxation and Finance

*2020 data is not comparable to other years because filing dates were postponed by the IRS due to the pandemic

• However, overall PIT collections were 5.1% higher year-over year, primarily due to withholding revenue (taxes withheld from monthly wage earners) which were 13.2% higher than in the previous year.
• Withholding growth has been boosted by employment and nominal wage gains. These gains are likely to dissipate with economic growth slowing and a forecast decline in Wall Street bonuses.

Cash Balances

• The City’s central treasury balance (funds available for expenditure) stood at $8.2 billion as of Thursday, June 30th. At the same time last year, the City had $8.5 billion.
• The Comptroller’s Office’s review of the City’s cash position during the third quarter of FY 2022 and projections for cash balances through September 30th, 2022, are available here. The forecast will be updated in the month of July to reflect prepayments and reserves in the Adopted Budget, as well as tax receipts.
• Although the City received $2.1 billion in American Rescue Plan Stimulus Funds in June 2022, it has not yet received $.8 billion that the City was also anticipating, which will now be paid in FY 2023.

Spotlight

The Pandemic’s Impact on Five-Borough Businesses

The COVID-19 pandemic is the largest shock to the New York City’s private establishment ecosystem in decades, pushing many businesses into closure and reshaping their distribution across the city. This spotlight takes a deep dive into Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW) data published by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) on June 8, 2022, to assess the changes in private establishments across boroughs and industry sectors between the fourth quarter of 2019 and the fourth quarter of 2021. While the net number of businesses in New York City as a whole declined during the two years, losses were disproportionally concentrated in Manhattan while the other boroughs saw growth or small declines.

New York City lost more than 4,000 private establishments from 2019 to 2021, a 1.5% decline from its base of approximately 275,000 prior to the pandemic. An “establishment” here is defined by the BLS as a single store or location, so a single employer may have multiple establishments (e.g. chain stores, retail banking, etc.). Over the same time period, jobs in New York City fell by approximately 295,000, or 7 percent of its base of approximately 4 million at the end of 2019. Establishment counts may not directly track jobs; for example, both retail establishments and employment fell over the two-year period, and both information establishments and employment grew. But the number of health care & social assistance establishments fell, even as their total jobs grew.

As Chart S.1 illustrates, Brooklyn gained substantially more total private establishments than any other borough between 2019 and 2021 while the Bronx and Staten Island also showed small increases.  Queens experienced a slight net decrease in total private establishments, but the great majority of New York City’s losses were concentrated in Manhattan.[1]

Chart S.1

Source – U.S. Department of Labor, Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages

How does this compare to prior periods?

When looking at a longer timeframe, New York City’s contraction of private establishments represents the largest fourth quarter to fourth quarter decline on both a one-year and two-year basis since the QCEW program was modernized in 1990.[2] In the 30 years of available data, the count of private establishments in New York City has increased consistently, except during economic shocks such as the early 90’s recession, the 9/11 recession, and the COVID-19 pandemic.

One distinctive characteristic of the pandemic decline is the outsized impact of private household employers within the total reduction of private establishments. These employers are defined as “private households that engage in employing workers on or about the premises in activities primarily concerned with the operation of the household” and they averaged 5% of total private establishments in New York City since 1990. The private household subsector accounted for a two-year loss of nearly 2,500 establishments or 61% of the overall net decline. Pandemic-driven reductions to private household establishments may be a consequence of changing patterns of work and schooling (e.g., more household members at home resulting in a reduced need for child care) as well as a desire to reduce the presence of non-household members in the home during the pandemic.

In Chart S.2 below, we illustrate the change in total private establishments on a yearly basis, disaggregating private households from the other sectors. For the one-year period ending in 2020, there was growth in private establishments when private household employers are removed. The losses for household employers may be explained by their ineligibility for Paycheck Protection Program loans which were initially included in the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Stability (CARES) Act and expanded by the Economic Aid Act and the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA).[3] However, as the same figure illustrates, in 2021 the city’s private establishment losses expanded far beyond the private household subsector. The decline in other private establishments in 2021 may be due to the expiration of the timeline for PPP loan forgiveness, which extended for up to 24 weeks after receipt of the loans.[4]

Chart S.2

Source – U.S. Department of Labor, Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages

Establishments are growing except in Manhattan

Notably, the major citywide decline in private establishments during the pandemic period has also accelerated a trend where an increasing share of establishments are found away from Manhattan, especially toward Brooklyn. As the overall size of New York City’s pie has grown over time, the size of each borough’s share has also shifted.

The share of New York City’s Manhattan-based private establishments, which once stood at 54.6% in the fourth quarter of 1990, has eroded to just 45.5% as of the fourth quarter of 2021. During this same time period, Brooklyn’s share of citywide private establishments has grown from 17.8% to 24.4%, while Queens and Staten Island showed more moderate gains of 2.5 and 0.4 percentage points respectively. The Bronx is the only other borough besides Manhattan with a reduced percentage of New York City’s overall private establishments since 1990. Chart S.3 below illustrates the changes in the distribution of private establishments in New York City between the fourth quarters of 1990 and 2021 respectively.

Chart S.3

Source – U.S. Department of Labor, Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages

In Chart S.4, we illustrate the year over year change in private establishment share at the final quarter of each year in Brooklyn and Manhattan. As the chart shows, Manhattan’s share of establishments declined every year since 1997 and recorded the largest loss in share in 2021. Brooklyn, on the other hand, exhibited growth in its share in every year since 1997, including during the 9/11 recession, the Great Recession, and the COVID-19 recession.

Chart S.4

Source – U.S. Department of Labor, Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages

Changes in Industry Sectors

For the remainder of this analysis, we frame our data within the two-year window from the final quarter of 2019 to the same quarter of 2021 to understand the pandemic’s impact on private establishments in New York City.  Below we review changes in industry sectors during that time period.

Table S.1 – Changes in New York City Private Establishments by Industry Sector

Source – U.S. Department of Labor, Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages

Changes in the city’s industry composition materialized in different ways over the two-year period. First, we discuss industries where changes to private establishment counts were observed across all five boroughs.  Afterwards, our discussion turns to shifts in the private establishment landscape that impacted some boroughs differently than others. We conclude this section with an interactive map that is embedded with detailed breakdowns of industry subsectors for each borough.

At the citywide level, four sectors showed net private establishment declines in each borough between the fourth quarters of 2019 and 2021. They were: Retail Trade (-2,023 establishments), Wholesale Trade (-1,084 establishments), Real Estate (-639 establishments), and Other Services (-3,563 establishments). Other Services includes private household employers, which, as previously noted, lost the greatest number of private establishments (-2,482 establishments), as well as Personal & Laundry services (-794 establishments), Repair & Maintenance (-166 establishments), and Membership Associations & Organizations (-121 establishments). These service declines, as well as the reduction in retail and wholesale services across the boroughs perhaps reflect changes in consumer behavior.

Losses in these sectors were partially offset by two industry sectors with five borough growth – Information (+1,049 establishments) and Administrative Services (+834 establishments). The Management sector saw citywide growth as well, with a net increase of 81 establishments.

Drilling more specifically into the large net reduction of 5,266 private establishments in Manhattan shows that some of its deepest industry declines were common across all boroughs, and included Other Services, Wholesale Trade, Retail Trade, and Real Estate. However, only Manhattan lost establishments in Accommodation and Food Services; Finance and Insurance; Arts, Entertainment and Recreation; and Professional and Technical Services.

Manhattan’s private establishment losses likely reflect changes in where and how people now spend their time. It is well documented in this newsletter and other sources that there have been fewer New Yorkers, out-of-town commuters and tourists working, living and congregating in Manhattan business districts, cultural venues and other heavily trafficked destinations during the pandemic period. This diminished population and customer base in Manhattan negatively impacted several industries, which have endured net losses in private establishments since the onset of the pandemic.

Changes in some of these sectors likely also illustrate a shift in the placement of certain private establishments citywide. For example, private establishments in the Professional and Technical Services sector sustained a net loss of 315 Manhattan-based establishments while tallying net increases of 599 private employers in Brooklyn, 91 in Queens and 46 in the Bronx. There was a similar shift in the Arts, Entertainment and Recreation sector, with a net decline of 244 Manhattan-based establishments but net increases of 57 private establishments in Brooklyn, 28 in Queens and 9 in the Bronx. The Construction sector provides another example of this trend. During our study period, Manhattan sustained a small loss of private construction establishments while each of the other boroughs saw net increases, with nearly half of the outer borough growth occurring in Queens.

Finally, it is notable that New York City overall recorded a net gain of 2,285 private establishments in the unclassified sector during our study period, with gains in all five boroughs. These businesses were a substantial factor in the overall change in private establishments during our study period. Unclassified industries are typically novel and new industries that may not fit within the existing classifications set by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). Surveys and other methods are used by BLS to eventually classify these businesses within their framework. Hopefully this reflects the birth of new and innovative businesses that will grow into thriving sectors across New York City. The 2021 business application data (generally, applications for an Employer Identification Number or EIN) released by the Census Bureau supports this hope and underlines the incredible amount of churn driven by the pandemic recession and recovery. Business applications in the five boroughs stood at 129,600 in 2019, they increased to 145,300 in 2020, and they reached 168,900 in 2021. Applications in 2020 and 2021 set new records in available data starting in 2005.[5]

Map

The interactive map below provides a breakdown of total private establishments for each borough at the close of the last three consecutive fourth quarters, starting with the fourth quarter of 2019, which immediately preceded the pandemic. Also embedded in the interactive map are tables with the top private establishment gains and losses in each borough by subsector, the changes in employment from Q4-2019 to Q4-2021 and the average weekly wage, which we include as proxies for a subsector’s size and typical renumeration. This additional granularity is furnished to provide even deeper context to the discussion above.

Spotlight Prepared by:  Stephen Corson, Senior Research Analyst

Sincerely,

Brad Lander