Just Released: New Regional Employment Data Now Available

Richard Deitz and Jonathan Hastings



Regional employment data provided by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) are a critically important tool used to track and assess local economic conditions on a timely basis. However, the primary data used for this purpose are monthly survey-based estimates that are revised once per year, and these revisions can sometimes be substantial and surprising. As a result, initial readings of these data can lead to conclusions about employment trends that may later change. It is possible to anticipate these revisions in advance of their release using a second publicly available data set released by the BLS. Like some of our colleagues at other Reserve Banks (the Dallas Fed and St. Louis Fed, in particular), the Federal Reserve Bank of New York is now performing an “early benchmark” of initial monthly employment releases throughout the year and making these benchmarked data available to the public on a monthly basis. Our early benchmarked estimates tend to more closely track revised data than the initial releases do, and can help policymakers and the public better monitor regional economic conditions on a timely basis.

Just Released: The New York Fed’s New Regional Economy Website

Jaison R. Abel, Jason Bram, Richard Deitz, and Jonathan Hastings

The New York Fed today unveiled a newly designed website on the regional economy that offers convenient access to a wide array of regional data, analysis, and research that the Bank makes available to the public. Focusing specifically on the Federal Reserve’s Second District, which includes New York State, Northern New Jersey, Southwestern Connecticut, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands, the new site also features information about the Bank's community engagement and outreach efforts across the region. With today’s release, we are providing new regional economic précis for local areas in our District—that is, short reports that give an overview of economic trends in each location; these reports will be updated regularly as new data are released.

Where Are Manufacturing Jobs Coming Back?

Jaison R. Abel and Richard Deitz

Second of two posts

As we outlined in our previous post, the United States lost close to six million manufacturing jobs between 2000 and 2010 but since then has gained back almost one million. In this post, we take a closer look at the geographic dimension of this modest rebound in manufacturing jobs. While job losses during the 2000s were fairly widespread across the country, manufacturing employment gains since then have been concentrated in particular parts of the country. Indeed, these gains were especially large in “auto alley”—a narrow motor vehicle production corridor stretching from Michigan south to Alabama—while much of the Northeast continued to shed manufacturing jobs. Closer to home, many of the metropolitan areas in the New York-Northern New Jersey region have been left out of this rebound and are continuing to shed manufacturing jobs, though Albany has bucked this trend with one of the strongest performances in the country.

Cryptocurrencies, Tariffs, “Too Big to Fail,” and Other Top LSE Posts of 2018

Trevor Delaney



“Cryptocurrency” hit the cultural mainstream in 2018. In March, Merriam-Webster added “cryptocurrency” to the dictionary, and in what was perhaps a greater litmus test of pop culture recognition, “bitcoin” was added to the official Scrabble dictionary in September. With such a surge in interest, it’s not too surprising that the most viewed post on Liberty Street Economics this past year focused on an issue surrounding how digital currencies operate that is not often put in the spotlight—trust. Similarly, as the subject of tariffs has become a more frequent topic of discussion in the news, readers have sought additional info, which fueled interest in another of our most viewed posts of the year. As 2019 approaches, we offer a chance to revisit these posts and the rest of our top five of 2018.

Just Released: Labor Markets in the Region Are Exceptionally Tight

Jaison R. Abel, Jason Bram, Richard Deitz, and Jonathan Hastings



At today’s economic press briefing, we examined labor market conditions across our District, which includes New York State, Northern New Jersey, and Fairfield County, Connecticut, as well as Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. As has been true throughout the expansion, New York City remains an engine of job growth, while employment gains have been more moderate in Northern New Jersey and fairly sluggish across most of upstate New York. Nonetheless, it has become more difficult for firms to find workers throughout the New York-Northern New Jersey region. It may not be terribly surprising that labor markets have tightened in and around New York City, where job growth has been strong, but labor markets have also tightened in upstate New York, even in places where there has been little or no job growth. This is because labor markets are tightening as a result of changes in both labor demand and labor supply. In upstate New York, a decline in the labor force has reduced the pool of available workers. Meanwhile, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands are still recovering from the destructive hurricanes last year. As these island economies continue to rebuild, employment has edged up in Puerto Rico and stabilized in the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Why New York City Subway Delays Don’t Affect All Riders Equally

Nicole Gorton and Maxim L. Pinkovskiy



The state of the New York City subway system has worsened considerably over the past few years. As a consequence of rising ridership and decaying infrastructure, the network is plagued by delays and frequently fails to deliver New Yorkers to their destinations on time. While these delays are a headache for anyone who depends on the subway to get around, they do not affect all riders in the same way. In this post, we explain why subway delays disproportionately affect low-income New Yorkers. We show that wealthier commuters who rely on the subway are less likely to experience extensive issues on their commutes.

Lower Manhattan since 9/11: A Study in Resilience

Jason Bram and Joelle Scally



The 9/11 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center left a deep scar on New York City and the nation, most particularly in terms of the human toll. In addition to the lives lost and widespread health problems suffered by many others—in particular by first responders and recovery workers—the destruction of billions of dollars’ worth of property and infrastructure led to severe disruptions to the local economy. Nowhere were these disruptions more severe and long-lasting than in the neighborhoods closest to Ground Zero.

Just Released: Mapping the Differences in School Spending in New York City

Rajashri Chakrabarti and Michael Stewart



This morning, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York released a set of interactive visuals that present data on school spending and its various components—such as instructional spending, instructional support, leadership support, and building services spending—across all thirty-two community school districts (CSD) in New York City and map their progression over time. A key feature of these interactive visuals is that they present the data in two forms: as adjusted data, which control for student categories that receive differential funding from the City based on their needs, and as raw data that do not include this adjustment. The interactive features allow the user to easily view (and compare) the adjusted and raw data, to observe trends for different spending categories, and to compare spending profiles across community school districts for each form of data. Demographic and socioeconomic characteristics of each CSD can be viewed by clicking on the district of interest. Our purpose is to make data on education finance and education indicators more accessible to a broader audience, including education researchers.

New York City’s Not-So-Outer Boroughs

Jason Bram




Ever since the first census of the U.S. population was taken, back in 1790, New York City has been the nation’s largest city, and for most of this time by a factor of more than two. But how has the city—in particular, the city’s boundaries—evolved over time?

The Impact of Superstorm Sandy on New York City School Closures and Attendance

Rajashri Chakrabarti and Max Livingston

On October 29, superstorm Sandy hit the tri-state area, flooding streets, highways, tunnels, buildings, and homes, and crippling the region’s public transit system. At least ninety-four people in New York and New Jersey were killed. Downed power lines and damaged transformers plunged downtown Manhattan and coastal areas into days and weeks of darkness. The damage is still being assessed, but costs are sure to be in the tens of billions. Schools were no exception to this devastation, both in infrastructural damage and in disruptions to students’ education. The storm shut down all 1,750 New York City public schools for a full week, and many remained closed, damaged, or were relocated in the following week. A few schools will not return to their normal locations until 2013. In this post, we analyze the impact of Sandy on New York City schools and assess how the storm might affect students’ educational outcomes.