New York Only State With Increase in Unemployment

A new report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics found that New York was the only state with an increase in unemployment over the past 12 months, according to the New York Times.

As of August, the state’s rate had climbed from 8.2 percent up to 9.1 percent since Gov. Andrew Cuomo took office in January 2011, something that may pose a problem for a possible 2016 presidential run.

“Certainly, this would come under scrutiny if he ever ran for president,” Don Dutkowsky, an economist and professor at the Maxwell School of Syracuse University, told the Times.

On the positive side, a federal payroll study that shows New York has jobs growing by 1.4 percent over the last 12 months, an above-average rate. Initial unemployment insurance claims have also been falling, according to the paper.

“Simply relying on the household unemployment survey does not paint an accurate or complete picture of job creation in New York State because the sample used in that survey is inadequate,” Richard Bamberger, a spokesman for the governor, told the Times, adding that New York has regained all of the 324,000 private-sector jobs lost in the recession.

According to the paper, there are a few possible reasons why the unemployment and payroll numbers are so different in New York City and statewide – for one, the unemployment data is based on a household survey that reaches the self-employed and people who work in agriculture, but the payroll survey is not. Some economists have said the unemployment survey only reached about 2,330 in New York State, too small of a pool to gather data from.

Still, the overall numbers look bad for Cuomo and New York. Last week, nonpartisan research group the Tax Foundation, ranked New York last out of the 50 states for its business climate, while the conservative Cato Institute gave Mr. Cuomo a “D” grade in assessing his tax and spending record.