Report: Quick growth in New York since 9/11

[Regis Philbin]

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/13/ny...13economy.html

Report Shows Quick Growth in New York Since 9/11

By PATRICK McGEEHAN
Published: July 13, 2006

New York City’s economy bounced back after Sept. 11 with surprising speed and is much healthier now than its slow-growing job market indicates, according to a report released yesterday by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

Graphic: New York Bounces Back Labor market data shows that there are 100,000 fewer private-sector jobs in the city than there were five years ago. But the report, which offers an analysis of the economic effects of 9/11 over the past five years, showed that the city has been recovering at least as fast as the nation by other measures. Most notably, average incomes have been rising faster for city residents than for other Americans, it states.

The report’s authors also concluded that the economic effects of the terrorist attacks were sharp but short-lived and had largely disappeared by the end of 2002. In the first months after the attacks, some analysts had predicted that the damage to the economy would be permanent.

Indeed, the report noted, the bursting of the stock market bubble of the late 1990’s has had a more lasting effect on the city’s job market.

“People keep asking, why are we 100,000 short of this last peak?” said Jason Bram, a Fed economist and a co-author of the report. “What’s surprising is not how low it is now, but how high it was in 2001.”