Eric: Rodents chasing folks out of NY Wanna know why? Rats why!
Mayor Adams blamed rats — along with the cost of living and COVID-19 — as big reasons why New Yorkers are fleeing the state in droves according to a recent report, he said Thursday.
Hizzoner pointed the finger at the Big Apple’s notorious rodent population after sobering new United States Census Bureau statistics revealed nearly 102,000 people had high-tailed it out of the Empire State within the last year.
“Some people who have children and families decide they want to go to a place where their children can play outdoors, larger green spaces, you want to see animals — you don’t see animals except for rats in New York,” Adams said when asked about the plunging population data.
“So there’s a combination of things,” he said, adding: “And we are getting rid of those rats, by the way.”
‘Perfect storm’
The mayor, who has repeatedly declared “I hate rats” and confessed to being “fixated on killing” them, has long waged a war against his old foe.
He’s even established the city’s first-ever “rat czar” to help stamp out Gotham’s vermin population.
Still, Adams — who insisted Thursday the city was still working to eliminate the rat problem — acknowledged that the skyrocketing cost of living is also to blame for the recent net-decline in residents.
“I think there’s a combination of why people are leaving the city. The cities have become unaffordable and, you know, people who left the city during COVID for a short period of time and some decided that they no longer want to come back into cities,” he said. “You have the remote work option where you don’t have to be in an office space to do the job. You can do it from wherever and so there’s a perfect storm of reasons that cities are losing their population. “At one time you may have lost, you know, 20,000 here, 15,000 here and now when you start to add up all of those dynamdifferent ics, it’s a way of life,” he added. The mayor suggested the influx of migrants pouring into the city could help turn the abysmal figures around.
“We don’t want people to leave, but people are also moving into the city,” he said.
“You know, I’ll see first time New Yorkers over and over again — people are moving in and they have,” he noted of the “152,000 migrants. We give ’em a job, they become workers, they become part of our economy, like other immigrant groups have become part of our economy.”
New York was one of just eight states to face a decline in residents between July 2022 to July 2023, the Census report found — while red states like Texas and Florida saw large spikes in population growth.
New York’s population tallied approximately 19,571,216 as of July 1, down from roughly 19,673,200 12 months earlier, the data show.
California suffered the biggest population blow after New York with a net decrease of almost 75,500, the data show.