Huge variations underlie the unemployment situation in New York City, according to

Huge variations underlie the unemployment situation in New York City, according to a new study by the Fiscal Policy Institute (FPI).

The institute estimates that unemployment was 5.1 percent on Manhattan’s Upper East and West Sides in the third quarter, compared to 15.7 percent in the South and Central Bronx and 19.2 percent in Brooklyn’s East New York neighborhood.

The overall unemployment rate in New York City was 10.1 percent in the third quarter of 2009.

The FPI report is the first to provide relatively current unemployment rates at a neighborhood level for New York City, as well as the first to provide such estimates on the basis of race/ethnicity and gender.



“Wall Street might be recovering, but the recession rages on in New York City’s
Main Street
neighborhoods,” said James Parrott, FPI’s Deputy Director and Chief Economist. “In some cases, great disparities exist within neighborhoods. For example, in the West Brooklyn neighborhood stretching from BrooklynHeights to Red Hook and Park Slope, white male unemployment was 3 percent, while in the same neighborhood, 46 percent of black men were jobless.”

Parrott also noted that the reported decline in New York City’s unemployment rate in November to 10.0 percent (seasonally adjusted) from 10.3 percent in October did not signal an improvement in the local job market. A closer look at the data shows that this decline was entirely due to people leaving the labor force, rather than an increase in the number of jobs.

The FPI report found that the citywide unemployment rate in the third quarter was 15.7 percent for blacks, 11.8 percent for Hispanics, 7.3 percent for white non-Hispanics, and 6.1 percent for the Asian and other category. Unemployment was higher for men (11.0 percent) than for women (9.1 percent).

For a more in-depth analysis of the recession in New York City www.fiscalpolicy.org