City Comptroller Scott Stringer said in a new report that the city’s economy is faring better than the rest of the country. File Photo
The city’s economy has so far outpaced the rest of the country this year, according to a report by city Comptroller Scott Stringer that also noted that Queens’ unemployment has dropped since last year and the number of homes being sold in the borough is on the rise.
Issued last week, Stringer’s report stated that the city’s economy grew almost 3 percent while the country’s economic growth hovered around a sluggish 0.1 percent in the first quarter of 2014.
“New York was firing on all cylinders in the first quarter of 2014, even as the national economy stalled,” Stringer said. “We’re taking a comprehensive look at the numbers behind how our city works and lives. The economy is picking up in the Big Apple, as unemployment falls and real estate heats up, which helps boost our tax revenue.”
In Stringer’s “New York City Quarterly Update,” Queens is reported to have an unemployment rate of 7.6 percent – less than the Bronx’s 11.6 percent and Brooklyn’s 8.8 percent, though higher than Manhattan’s 6.7 percent. Staten Island recorded the same 7.6 percent. Queens’ rate is better than the 8.3 percent reported at the same time last year.
Additionally, the housing market in Queens appears to be on the mend, with the comptroller noting that the number of one- to three-family homes rose 20 percent in Queens over last year. The number of apartments sold in Manhattan also rose, going to 3,307 in the first quarter of this year – the highest first quarter in seven years.
The average sales price per square foot rose 12.6 percent in Queens and 10.3 percent in Brooklyn, compared to the prior year, according to Stringer’s report.
The comptroller’s report also highlighted that job growth in the first quarter jumped about 2 percent in the city, with the most significant gains being in education and health services.
And while the winter typically affects spending because people are more reticent to leave their warm homes, Stringer noted that sales tax collections grew 4.4 percent in the city – “showing that shoppers in New York were less deterred by the harsh winter.”
By Anna Gustafson
