Just Released: February’s Empire State Manufacturing Survey Signals a Further Pickup
February’s Empire State Manufacturing Survey (ESMS) indicates that manufacturing activity in New York State continued to expand for a third consecutive month.
How Did the Great Recession Affect New York State’s Public Schools?
Surprisingly, there is no literature on how recessions (including the Great Recession) have affected schools.
Just Released: July’s Indexes of Coincident Economic Indicators Show Economic Activity Picking Up across the Region
The July Indexes of Coincident Economic Indicators (CEIs) for New York State, New York City, and New Jersey, released today, reveal that economic activity continued to expand in both New York State and New York City and—for the second month in a row—picked up moderately in New Jersey.
Just Released: July’s Empire State Manufacturing Survey Shows Ongoing Weakness in New York Manufacturing
The July Empire State Manufacturing Survey, published today, indicates that manufacturing conditions continued to weaken in New York State. The survey’s headline index was -3.8, the second negative reading in a row, and suggested that, overall, manufacturing activity declined slightly in New York. Because the survey is a diffusion index, readings below zero indicate that more respondents reported worsening conditions than improving conditions. Lower (or higher) values of the index indicate more widespread decline (or improvement). The Empire State Manufacturing Survey is the first available indicator of manufacturing activity for the month. While it is entirely possible that what we are seeing is idiosyncratic to New York State, July’s report raises questions about whether the manufacturing sector is experiencing a temporary bump in the road, or is headed toward a more sustained slowdown. In this post, we review some of the highlights of today’s report.
The Great Recession and Recovery in the Tri‑State Region
In 2008, as the financial crisis unfolded and the U.S. economy tumbled into a sharp recession, the outlook for the tri-state region (New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut) and especially New York City—the heart of the nation’s financial industry—looked grim. Regional economists feared an economic downturn as harsh as the one in 2001, or the even deeper recession of the early 1990s. Now, as the recovery takes hold, we can report that although the economic downturn was severe in the region, with the unemployment rate surging above 9 percent in many places, it was less severe than many had anticipated. This post—which is based on the New York Fed’s May 6 Regional Economic Press Briefing—recaps how the Great Recession affected employment across the region, how the ensuing recovery has progressed, and what the prospects are for job growth as we go forward.
Historical Echoes: New York City’s Economy – That Was Now, This Is Then
Discussions of New York City’s economy that focus on declining employment, a shrinking securities industry, and a reduction in municipal jobs might suggest the present. These concerns, however, are not new. In the 1970s, New York City faced many of the same problems it does now in the aftermath of the Great Recession. Back then, some observers doubted that the city could ever recover its former glory.
New York City’s Economic Recovery—Main Street Gets the Jump on Wall Street
After bottoming out in late 2009, New York City’s economy has been on the road to recovery. In this post, we call attention to an unprecedented feature of the current economic recovery: overall employment in the city began to rebound from the recession well before Wall Street started adding jobs. We also consider some questions that this development naturally raises: What took Wall Street employment so long to recover? What’s been driving job generation on Main Street? What does the recent pickup in Wall Street employment suggest about the outlook for the city’s economy?