Tag: New York City

Data proves it: Pandemic is no excuse for NYC’s rising tide of violent crime

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://nypost.com/2021/05/09/pandemic-is-no-excuse-for-nycs-rising-tide-of-violent-crime/

Excerpt:

So he [NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio] hasn’t acted with much urgency as the murder rate rose 47 percent last year, to a total of 468 people killed, and has risen this year, so far, by 17 percent. 

…..

In London, the global city that most closely resembles Gotham, the murder rate plummeted last year. It fell to 126 from 150, down 16 percent. 

Why? Well, that’s obvious: It was the global pandemic. “Many, many crime types have reduced as you would expect,” said Met Police chief Cressida Dick, noting that fewer people were outside to fight with each other. 

How about Italy, hit hard and early by the pandemic? There, murders fell by 14 percent, to 271 from 315. 

France with its troubled banlieues? The country’s murders were down 2 percent in 2020, to 863. 

….

But these are all safe countries anyway. So what about cartel-ridden Mexico? There, murders fell by slightly less than half a percent last year, to 34,523 — the first decline in six years. 

Author(s): Nicole Gelinas

Publication Date: 9 May 2021

Publication Site: NY Post

New York Taxes Go Skyscraper High

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.wsj.com/articles/new-york-taxes-go-skyscraper-high-11617834769

Excerpt:

The budget deal Gov. Andrew Cuomo cut this week with the Legislature lifts the top marginal rate on the state’s income tax to 10.9%, from today’s 8.82%. Add New York City’s top local tax of 3.88%, and the total is 14.78%. Take a knee, California (top marginal rate of 13.3%), and recognize America’s new tax king. Wall Street types already are migrating to Florida, which has an income tax of 0%.

Mr. Cuomo’s budget deal also raises the business franchise tax to 7.25%, from 6.5%. This affects many independent proprietors and will be another incentive to escape from Manhattan. Both of these tax increases are sold as temporary “surcharges,” running through 2027 for the income tax and 2023 for the corporate tax. But politicians in Albany used the same line when they passed the “millionaires tax” in 2009. Does Mr. Cuomo think two decades is temporary?

The reason for the tax increase isn’t the pandemic or a revenue shortfall. Mr. Cuomo last year pointed a gun at New York’s head and threatened to shoot unless Congress sent more money. He received the ransom he demanded, and more. The state is getting $12.6 billion in direct budget relief from President Biden’s $1.9 trillion Covid bill.

Author(s): Editorial Board

Publication Date: 7 April 2021

Publication Site: Wall Street Journal

TRUST THE SCIENCE: THE BLUE STATE SURGE IS REAL

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: http://www.newgeography.com/content/007004-trust-science-the-blue-state-surge-real

Excerpt:

What did make a big difference, it turns out, is not so much the severity of lockdowns but pre-existing conditions. The likely cause here can be best identified as “exposure density” brought on by crowded housing, transit, and office environments.

That helps explain why, after New York City’s suburbs were hit hard in the first wave, the current surge has hit the outer boroughs, where a much higher share of workers have had little choice but to continue taking the subway or other transit.

Nationwide, urban exposure to the pandemic also reflects their greater inequality. Higher rates of poverty and overcrowded housing accentuate the worst effects of the pandemic, which tore through impoverished parts of New York, Houston, Los Angeles County, Chicago’s poor south side, and similar areas. The Bronx, for example, has suffered an 80 percent worse death rate than denser yet wealthier Manhattan, while Brooklyn’s rate is 50 percent worse than Manhattan’s.

Author(s): Joel Kotkin, Wendell Cox

Publication Date: 6 April 2021

Publication Site: New Geography

Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Subway Ridership in New York City

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.osc.state.ny.us/reports/osdc/impact-covid-19-pandemic-subway-ridership-new-york-city

Graphic:

Excerpt:

Subway turnstile data published by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) shows a correlation between median household income and subway ridership. Neighborhoods with lower median household incomes tended to have significantly higher ridership as a share of 2019 levels compared to wealthier neighborhoods. This trend was clear not only in April, when COVID-19 had its most dramatic impact on ridership, but has continued through the recovery to date.

In high-income neighborhoods, residents are more likely to be employed in sectors that have easily adapted to remote-work models, such as financial activities and business services. In neighborhoods where residents are more likely to continue using the subway during the pandemic, common areas of employment are the health care and social assistance sector and the leisure and hospitality sector.

Author(s): Thomas DiNapoli

Date Accessed: 28 March 2021

Publication Site: Office of New York State Comptroller

NYS Comptroller DiNapoli: Wall Street’s 2020 Bonuses Rose Amid Volatility

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.osc.state.ny.us/press/releases/2021/03/nys-comptroller-dinapoli-wall-streets-2020-bonuses-rose-amid-volatility

Excerpt:

The average bonus paid to employees in New York City’s securities industry grew by 10 percent in 2020 to $184,000, in line with the city’s most recent 9.9 percent projection, likely allowing the city to meet or exceed its income tax revenue projections in FY2021, according to annual estimates released today by New York State Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli.

….

As a major source of revenue, DiNapoli estimates that the securities industry accounted for 18 percent ($15.1 billion) of state tax collections in state fiscal year (SFY) 2020 and 6 percent ($3.9 billion) of city tax collections in city fiscal year (CFY) 2020.

Pretax profits in 2020 for the broker/dealer operations of New York Stock Exchange member firms (the traditional measure of securities industry profits) increased by 81 percent to $50.9 billion. It was the fifth consecutive year of growth in profits, which are up 256 percent since 2015. Profitability in 2020 was the second highest on record, trailing $61.4 billion recorded in 2009.

Author(s): Thomas DiNapoli

Publication Date: 26 March 2021

Publication Site: Office of New York State Comptroller

New York City Comptroller: Ax Rule Forcing Private Equity to Pay Legal Bills

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.ai-cio.com/news/new-york-city-comptroller-ax-rule-forcing-private-equity-pay-legal-bills/

Excerpt:

Scott Stringer is worried. New York City pension funds are having a tough time enlisting private equity (PE) firms due to a requirement that PE outfits pay for litigation expenses out of their own pockets instead of shunting the cost onto investors.  

So, as the city official overseeing the funds, City Comptroller Stringer is urging fund trustees to scrap this rule, which would help the buyout firms if they run into trouble with regulators or other litigants, as first reported by the New York Post. The idea is to get more PE players managing city pension money.

The New York City Public Pension Funds, the collective of the city’s five pension funds, implemented the private equity rule, called the “GP Expenses Provision,” roughly five years ago after Carlyle Group was swept up in a collusion case and had to pay a $115 million settlement, the Post reported.

Author(s): Sarah Min

Publication Date: 26 February 2021

Publication Site: ai-CIO

As Wall Street Migrates to Florida, Hedge-Funders Move to Offload Manhattan Homes

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.wsj.com/articles/wall-street-moves-to-florida-nyc-real-estate-11614020268

Excerpt:

Real-estate veterans and hedge-fund executives believe a seismic shift is under way, one that is moving vast amounts of Wall Street wealth from New York to South Florida. For the past several years, Wall Street has been colonizing the Sunshine State, attracted to more favorable tax policies and sunnier climes. And the momentum is only accelerating amid the pandemic.

….

While prices are under pressure in New York amid an oversupply of high-end condominiums on the market, price tags in Palm Beach and Miami appear to be on an unstoppable upward trajectory.

Last week, private-equity executive Scott Shleifer, a co-founder of Tiger Global Management, paid over $120 million for an oceanfront mansion in Palm Beach, setting a price record for the state. New Jersey hedge-fund executive David Tepper is also in contract to buy a $73 million house on the ocean nearby, The Wall Street Journal reported.

While he maintains a $238 million home in New York and another luxury condo in Chicago, Citadel founder Ken Griffin has also been on an acquisition spree in South Florida, spending hundreds of millions of dollars to buy land in Palm Beach and Miami, and is opening an office in Miami.

Author(s): Katherine Clarke, Cara Lombardo

Publication Date: 22 February 2021

Publication Site: Wall Street Journal

Arts, Entertainment and Recreation in New York City

Mary Pat Campbell

Recent Trends and Impact of COVID-19

Link: https://www.osc.state.ny.us/reports/osdc/arts-entertainment-and-recreation-new-york-city-recent-trends-and-impact-covid-19

Graphic:

Excerpt:

In 2019, New York City’s arts, entertainment and recreation sector employed 93,500 people in 6,250 establishments. These jobs had an average salary of $79,300 and generated $7.4 billion in total wages.

In 2019, 128,400 residents (including nearly 31,000 self-employed residents) drew their primary source of earnings from the arts, entertainment and recreation sector.

From 2009 to 2019, employment in the sector grew by 42 percent, faster than the 30 percent rate for total private sector employment. Establishments and total wages in the sector also grew faster than all establishments and wages citywide.

As of December 2020, arts, entertainment and recreation employment declined by 66 percent from one year earlier, the largest decline among the City’s economic sectors.

The Chelsea/Clinton/Midtown Manhattan Business District neighborhood, home to 1,921 venues, accounted for 46 percent of all jobs in the sector, far more than any other City neighborhood.

Publication Date: February 2021

Publication Site: Office of the New York State Comptroller

NYC Pension Funds Rebound After Missing Fiscal 2020 Target

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.ai-cio.com/news/nyc-pension-funds-rebound-missing-fiscal-2020-target/

Excerpt:

New York City’s five pension systems have bounced back from a 4.4% return for fiscal year 2020 that missed an actuarial target of 7%, to return roughly 18% in the first seven months of fiscal year 2021, according to a report from New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli.

Since fiscal 2012, the pension funds, which had approximately $239.8 billion in assets under management (AUM) as of November, have earned an average of 7.5% annually on their investments.

According to the Comptroller Office’s Review of the Financial Plan of the City of New York, pension contributions have stabilized after growing rapidly for many years, mainly due to higher-than-expected investment returns and savings from lower-cost pension plans enacted for employees hired after March 2012. However, the contributions are still forecast to total $10.1 billion in fiscal 2022.

Author(s): Michael Katz

Publication Date: 25 February 2021

Publication Site: ai-CIO

N.Y.C. Covid Vaccine Disparities Revealed in ZIP Code Data: Officials

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/16/nyregion/nyc-covid-vaccine-zip-codes.html

Excerpt:

Officials in New York City released new data by ZIP codes on Tuesday that they said underscored troubling disparities in the city’s vaccination effort, with the share of residents who are fully vaccinated in some wealthier Upper West and East Side ZIP codes, which have high proportions of white residents, reaching up to eight times the rate in parts of predominantly Black neighborhoods like East New York.

The figures for individual ZIP codes provided one of the most granular pictures of the city’s vaccination effort to date. And it added more evidence suggesting that across the country, the vaccine appears to be flowing disproportionately toward areas with wealthy and white residents, even though low-income communities of color remain the hardest hit by the coronavirus.

Still, questions remained. The new city data does not break down vaccine recipients by race in each ZIP code, nor does it account for how many people in each ZIP code are eligible to be vaccinated.

Author(s): Mihir Zaveri

Publication Date: 16 February 2021

Publication Site: NY Times

NYC Public Educator Pensions Rise Again

Mary Pat Campbell
NYC Public Educator Pensions Rise Again

Excerpt:

Average pension benefits paid to newly retired public educators in New York City rose again in 2020, according to data posted today at SeeThroughNY.net for New York City Teachers’ Retirement System (NYCTRS). 

The pension benefits collected by 969 teachers, college instructors, and school administrators who retired in 2019 with at least 30 years of service credit and received a full year of pension benefits in 2020 averaged $75,212.  

NYCTRS paid six-figure pension benefits to 3,708 retired New York City teachers. Of those retirees collecting more than $100,000, 104 retired during the 2019 calendar year.  

Author(s): press release

Publication Date: 11 February 2021

Publication Site: Empire Center for Public Policy