New York Is Creating Jobs But Losing People

After adding more than 1.3 million inhabitants since the early 1990s, New York City has been shrinking since mid-2016. According to estimates released last week by the U.S. Census Bureau, the New York-Newark-Jersey City metropolitan area lost population in the 12-month periods ending July 2018 and July 2017 as well.

This raises an important question: Is New York shrinking because nobody wants to come here, or because there’s not enough housing to accommodate the people who do? It’s impossible to give a definite answer, but I thought it might be interesting to compare the population numbers with another important data series — payroll employment: