Why NY Lags on Jobs

New York Democrats pretend their policies — COVID mandates, green regs, high taxes — don’t hurt the economy, but there’s a reason the city and state so often lag the rest of America. The latest numbers on New York jobs are a perfect example.

While the nation has recovered nearly all the jobs lost in the pandemic, New York City has regained only a bit more than half the whopping 1 million positions that vanished here. In the 12 months through October, the United States recovered 6 million jobs, vs. a measly 174,000 in the Big Apple. Gotham’s 9.4 percent jobless rate is more than double the nation’s 4.6 percent.

The statewide October unemployment rate was 6.9 percent. And the rates would be far higher if so many New Yorkers hadn’t given up looking for a job.

The slow-as-molasses return of tourists and office workers leaves countless retail stores, restaurants and hotels — whose business they depend on — shuttered or operating at a far smaller scale. Per the Partnership for New York City, only 8 percent of office workers were back on-site full-time last month.

New York’s harsh lockdowns imposed by then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Mayor de Blasio clearly devastated businesses and their employees, with low- and middle-class workers hit hardest. Now, new rules are hampering the rebound.

De Blasio actually ordered private businesses to enforce a vaccine mandate. Gov. Hochul then followed with her own broadbrush order for universal indoor masking. The decrees will further stall the economy.

On Tuesday, Hochul ridiculously blamed the mayor for extending her edict to the Big Apple, claiming she’d have exempted the city except that it already had “a more restrictive requirement in place.”

What a pathetic cop-out. De Blasio and Hochul are both either clueless or heartless: They either have no idea how to deal with the now far-less-dangerous threat from COVID, or they care more about their image as “bold leaders” than about New Yorkers’ jobs.